Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has rejected a forecast that artificial intelligence could trigger a 50% Bitcoin crash within two years, arguing that most AI-driven security failures will remain fixable. The dispute, raised by investor Liron Shapiro, comes as AI-assisted exploits already pressure crypto infrastructure and major tech firms race to arm defenders.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has pushed back against a prediction that artificial intelligence could trigger a 50% Bitcoin crash within two years. Silicon Valley investor and AI-risk commentator Liron Shapiro had said he sees a 50% probability that Bitcoin will fall more than 50% over the next two years because AI undermines what investors believe are the network's security guarantees.
Buterin argued Bitcoin should be able to handle security failures that do not require social consensus, including attacks on clients, mining pools, and other network infrastructure. He placed a low probability on AI producing a fundamental break in Bitcoin's proof-of-work system. He said his existing crypto holdings already amount to a wager on the outcome, since they make up roughly 90% of his net worth, and suggested the same argument applies to Ethereum.
AI attacks already test crypto defenses
Shapiro's argument does not require AI to break Bitcoin's underlying cryptography — a wave of attacks that exposes assumed-safe weaknesses could damage confidence even if developers eventually patch them. Evidence suggests that threat is already operational. In August, Bitcoin swap provider Boltz suspended its service after months of automated, AI-assisted probing led to several contained exploits that moved faster than its small development team could patch.
Boltz said its non-custodial architecture protected customer funds but absorbed losses from the exploits before concluding it could no longer safely run the service. The episode showed AI pressuring infrastructure around Bitcoin without compromising its proof-of-work or cryptography, using automation to search for weaknesses faster than defenders could investigate and fix them. Deddy David, chief executive of blockchain security firm Cyvers, said crypto would be among the first markets to feel it if AI can find vulnerabilities at scale.
Tech firms race to arm defenders
The risk extends across wallets, bridges, exchanges, smart contracts, and blockchain network software, giving attackers far more entry points than Bitcoin's core consensus mechanism. Anthropic has restricted public access to its Claude Mythos model over its ability to autonomously discover and weaponize software vulnerabilities, instead directing it toward defenders through Project Glasswing, an initiative with Amazon Web Services, Google, Microsoft, and JPMorgan Chase. Anthropic has committed as much as $100 million in usage credits to the effort.
More than 100 organizations, including Google, Microsoft, Anthropic, and OpenAI, have signed an open letter warning that AI-enabled cyberattacks are likely to become substantially more widespread and sophisticated within months. Banks and technology firms including Capital One, Mastercard, Visa, Adobe, Oracle, and IBM also joined the call, urging governments and companies to extend advanced defensive AI to under-resourced infrastructure such as hospitals and water utilities.
That leaves the Buterin-Shapiro dispute unresolved: whether attackers gain a decisive edge before defensive tools and network infrastructure catch up.
Source: CryptoSlate
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