Vitalik Buterin Dismisses 50% Bitcoin Crash Fears Tied to AI Security Risks

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has waded into a debate over whether artificial intelligence can trigger a major Bitcoin (BTC) price collapse in the coming years. Buterin argued that AI security risks will not lead to a 50% BTC crash within two years, pointing to frantic cybersecurity developments in the ecosystem.

Buterin places faith in Bitcoin to weather AI risks

The exchange began when Liron Shapira, a commentator known for tracking AI-risk forecasts, posted that he assigned even odds to Bitcoin crashing by 50% or more within two years. According to Shapira, AI can undermine assumptions the market holds about Bitcoin’s security, exposing weaknesses that are not yet priced in.

In a follow-up, Shapira also pointed to declining miner rewards as another factor that can send Bitcoin prices into a steep decline in the same period. At the moment, BTC is trading at the cusp of $80,000, with long-term predictions tipping the asset to trade at over $300,000 within two years.

“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,” said Shapira.

Buterin responded to Shapira’s grim forecasts with a more optimistic stance. The Ethereum co-founder noted that he is confident of the long-term trajectory of cybersecurity, framing the bigger challenge as managing the transition period rather than the end state.

Buterin added that he expects the Bitcoin network to handle any security issues that can be resolved without requiring social consensus. In his post, Buterin implied that the more serious risk to Bitcoin is not technical vulnerability but the difficulty of getting the community to agree on fixes for problems that require coordinated action.

“I think the probability of actual breaks on hashes on PoW is tiny,” added Buterin.

In a show of belief in his thesis, the Ethereum co-founder disclosed that he still holds Bitcoin in his portfolio. While his Bitcoin holdings are under 10% of his portfolio, Buterin argues that the AI threat also applies to Ethereum, maintaining an optimistic stance for both networks to defend themselves from bad actors.

AI risks still loom in the shadows for Bitcoin

Following Buterin’s bullish stance on Bitcoin’s ability to defend against AI risks, Shapira downgraded his prediction to 40%. However, a bird’s-eye view indicates that AI still poses significant risk to Bitcoin and the rest of the cryptocurrency ecosystem.

For starters, there are concerns of AI-accelerated social engineering scams leading to losses of cryptocurrency holdings. Last week, Trezor raised an alarm that a data breach at one of its shipping partners affected over 60,000 customers, warning of increased phishing attempts aimed at stealing their crypto holdings.

Furthermore, there is the risk of AI-assisted vulnerability discovery, speeding up attackers finding bugs in exchange code and custody software. The Bitcoin Red Team, composed of volunteers, used AI to uncover 85 critical bugs across 400 Bitcoin projects in a single day in a preemptive move to get ahead of bad actors.

A close look at the horizon indicates a shift among Bitcoin miners turning their gaze toward providing services for AI companies. Amid high energy prices, Bitcoin miners are converting their mining facilities into AI data centers as post-halving block rewards continue shrinking.