Boltz has suspended its Bitcoin swap service indefinitely, saying a rise in automated, AI-assisted attacks has made it unsafe to keep operating.
In a series of X posts on Monday, the non-custodial service said swaps are unavailable "until further notice" and that it has no estimate for when they will return. "We can't give an ETA as of this time, but will provide an update once we know more," the company wrote.
Company says the shutdown was not triggered by one isolated event
Boltz said the decision was not a response to a single incident. According to the company, it has seen a steady increase over the past months in automated, AI-assisted probing of its infrastructure and has already dealt with several exploits. Those incidents were contained, it said, but the pattern had become hard to ignore: attackers were iterating faster than a team of Boltz's size could find and patch issues.
The pace of attacks accelerated over the past few days, the company said, pushing it to conclude that it could no longer run the swap service safely.
Boltz added that after reviewing the results of its own recent security scans, it could not responsibly switch swaps back on, especially while it was being actively targeted by what it described as multiple resourceful groups as it rushed to deploy fixes.
User funds remained under user control
Boltz lets customers move Bitcoin between the Lightning Network and Bitcoin's base layer without handing custody of funds to the company. Because users keep control of their assets through the process, Boltz said that "no user funds were ever at risk."
The company has not published transaction volume figures. DeFiLlama currently shows roughly $262,000 in total value locked on the protocol.
Even with swaps disabled, Boltz said its API remains online for cooperative refunds. Unilateral refunds continue to work as well because they do not depend on Boltz infrastructure, and customer support is still available.
Boltz says the attacks point to a broader shift
The company argued that what it is facing reflects a wider change for Bitcoin infrastructure operators. "What we are seeing is a major paradigm shift for Bitcoin services operating on an open source stack, and it needs careful analysis," Boltz wrote.
It also cautioned users not to expect swap services to resume any time soon.
AI's role in crypto attacks is drawing wider scrutiny
The suspension comes as the crypto industry wrestles with how AI is changing offensive and defensive security work.
On Tuesday, Ledger Chief Technology Officer Charles Guillemet said AI allows attackers to scan code and uncover vulnerabilities at "machine speed," while defenders are increasingly using AI to try to find those same flaws first. His comments came as fallout from the Coldcard exploit continued to spread, with losses nearing $130 million.