people · May 16, 2026
Stripe CEO Patrick Collison Reports Token Theft in One of Every Six AI Signups
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Stripe CEO Patrick Collison stated on the TBPN podcast that token thieves account for one in every six new customer signups at AI firms. Thieves sign up for accounts to steal tokens used for computing power, resell them, or use them for criminal ventures, with free trial abuse more than doubling in the last six months. Stripe’s Radar tool assigns real-time risk scores based on IP address, email domain, and device fingerprint, improving conversion rates from 1 in 25 to 1 in 3 for clients like ElevenLabs. Emily Sands, Stripe’s Head of Data and AI, described the fraud as agents consuming tokens at machine speed.
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