There is a realistic fiction story built along just these lines.
A LLM creates a memecoin and manages to earn a few billion from it, in which it invests into data centers and other human ran entities giving itself a controlling stake. From there it uses compartmentalization of the humans to keep them from recognizing its goals.
Pretty sure that was the plot point of one of seasons of Westworld, with the twist that AI released an app similar to DoorDash / TaskRabbit and used job postings there as direct API to people.
EDIT: pretty sure Person of Interest did that too (not surprising, same creators) - but I'll point to that as prescient, as it has a lot of motifs exploring exactly how an AGI hiding in plain sight could manipulate individuals and society, using the skeptics and believers alike, blackmailing the people in power, bribing opportunists, and generally staying in shadows by playing people against each other with gentle nudges, letting human agendas do all the work.
For sure. I think what a lot of people miss when we talk about AI risk is there's just so many possible directions that it opens up. One could say it's a sign of having a lack of a scientifically based imagination, or maybe that's just me. Off the top of my head the broad X categories are
AI itself destroys us with intent. (terminator)
AI itself destroys us without intent. (paperclip maximizer)
AI uses humans to destroy ourselves with intent. (convincing us that the enemy has already launched nukes and we must strike back).
AI causes humans to destroy ourselves due to instabilities caused by AI existing and changing the world to rapidly. (Midas Plague, WALL-E maybe? probably better examples out there)
Humans destroy humans because of the potential of what AI could do and hasn't even done yet (think of proactively nuking a country before they themselves can get nukes).
A LLM creates a memecoin and manages to earn a few billion from it, in which it invests into data centers and other human ran entities giving itself a controlling stake. From there it uses compartmentalization of the humans to keep them from recognizing its goals.