Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has challenged the claim that artificial intelligence could undermine Bitcoin’s security, saying his own holdings mean that roughly 90% of his net worth is already riding on the opposite outcome.
Liron Shapira tied AI security concerns to Bitcoin price risk
The exchange started with entrepreneur Liron Shapira, who wrote in an X post on Sept. 6 that, with “50% confidence,” Bitcoin could fall by more than 50% over the next two years. His argument was that AI may erode what outside observers had assumed were Bitcoin’s guarantees of security and robustness.
That post directly linked the recent debate over whether AI could break Bitcoin cryptography to downside price risk.
Buterin said he remains optimistic on long-term cybersecurity
Buterin replied on Sept. 7 and took the opposite side. He said he is “quite optimistic” about long-term cybersecurity and argued that the main issue is the “transition period.”
He said Bitcoin should be able to handle problems that do not require broad social consensus, including client upgrades and mining pool responses to network-layer attacks. As for the possibility of hash functions or proof-of-work, or PoW, being genuinely broken, he described that probability as “very small.”
Buterin also said that, given his current holdings, he has effectively placed “about 90%” of his net worth on that view.
A broader debate over whether AI helps attackers first or defenders
The disagreement reflects a wider split in the market over AI-driven vulnerability discovery. One camp worries that AI could sharply lower the barrier for attackers. The other believes defensive tools and upgrade paths can keep pace.
ABMedia noted that Chain News had previously reported that a red team used a Chinese AI system to identify nearly 5,000 Bitcoin-related vulnerabilities. It also referenced an earlier report that StarkWare completed the first quantum-resistant Bitcoin transaction, pointing to progress on the defensive side as well.
For now, the episode remains a clash of views rather than a settled conclusion. What follows will depend on actual developments on both the offensive and defensive fronts.