Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has pushed back against the prediction that artificial intelligence could a 50% Bitcoin (BTC) price crash by undermining the security of the leading cryptocurrency.
Buterin responded to AI-risk commentator Liron Shapira, who believes that there is a 50% probability of such an outcome.
"I claim (50% confidence) that BTC prices will crash 50%+ in the next 2 years because of AI undermining what people imagined were its security or robustness guarantees," Shapira wrote on the X social media network.
Buterin said he was willing to take the opposite side.
He believes that AI systems, which have become scarily powerful, may indeed create serious cybersecurity challenges. However, this doesn’t not necessarily mean that Bitcoin’s security might come under threat.
"I take the opposite side of that," Buterin replied.
Patching AI-related attacks
According to the Ethereum co-founder, Bitcoin should be capable of responding relatively smoothly to vulnerabilities that do not require changes to the network’s social consensus.
These could include network-layer attacks, vulnerabilities affecting Bitcoin client software or problems involving mining-pool infrastructure.
"I expect BTC to handle at least any issues that do not require social consensus well," Buterin said.
AI does not necessarily need to crack Bitcoin’s cryptography. Advanced models could instead discover ordinary software vulnerabilities in node implementations, wallets, mining infrastructure, exchanges or libraries.
Concern about precisely this possibility has grown substantially in 2026.
More than three dozen Bitcoin and cryptocurrency companies, including Coinbase, Block and BitGo, recently urged leading AI developers to give security researchers better access to powerful frontier models.
The UK Financial Conduct Authority has reportedly warned that AI systems are becoming capable of finding cybersecurity weaknesses faster than financial institutions can fix them.
A cryptographic break is unlikely
Buterin is convinced that the probability of an "actual" break affecting Bitcoin’s hashing system or proof-of-work mechanism remains extremely small.
"And I think the probability of actual breaks on hashes or PoW is tiny," Buterin wrote.
Buterin appears to believe that Bitcoin’s capacity to respond to ordinary vulnerabilities makes such an extreme market outcome unlikely.
90% of Buterin's net worth is on the line
Buterin even joked that he had little need to formally wager against Shapira.
“I would offer a bet, but given what my holdings are I'm basically taking this bet (I assume you believe the same re ETH) with ~90% of my net worth already,” he wrote.
Dan Burgin
U.Today Editorial Team
