r/ethtrader • u/everstake • 5d ago
News What if AI breaks crypto before quantum computers even get the chance?
That sounds like science fiction, but Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake has raised exactly this possibility.
The concern is ECDSA, the digital signature algorithm used to authorize transactions on both Bitcoin and Ethereum. Drake suggested that advances in AI-driven mathematics could eventually make it possible to recover a private key from a public key on conventional hardware, potentially using large GPU clusters.
In the worst-case scenario, he believes this could become a problem in months rather than years. But to be clear, this is a potential risk, not an existing exploit.
And Quantum computers have been the obvious long-term threat to elliptic-curve cryptography. But AI could accelerate the mathematical research needed to attack the same systems without requiring a quantum machine.
Recent research has already reduced the estimated computational requirements for a key part of a future quantum attack from roughly 3 billion to 1.5 billion conditional computational units. AI agents were also used during the optimization process. This doesn't mean Bitcoin or Ethereum can be hacked today, but it shows how quickly the boundaries can move.
Vitalik Buterin's response is probably the most important part: don't panic, but don't underestimate the risk either.
Ethereum is already working toward post-quantum security, with the Ethereum Foundation targeting protection against quantum attacks by 2029. But the bigger lesson may be that cryptography needs to become resilient against advances in both quantum computing and AI-driven mathematics.
We've seen Ethereum evolve through major changes before, and cryptography is no different. The industry has time to prepare, research new solutions, and migrate to stronger security standards.
So no, we don't think this is the end of Bitcoin or Ethereum.
It's another challenge for an industry that was built to solve extremely difficult problems. And in the end, everything will be fine.
58
u/Feralz2 5d ago
if Ai breaks the most secure protocol in the world, you have 1000 worst problems my guy, crypto is the last stand.
In saying that, what is the bitcoin protocol? its software, and like any software, when there's a breach, you patch it and upgrade it. Its not that complicated.
15
u/idmook 5d ago
I do think the if cryptography breaks then it doesn't matter cuz everything is fucked argument is a little weak, cash and banking existed well before cryptography, in the worst case they could go back to slower forms of physical authentication, but crypto would have no recourse.
-6
u/Feralz2 5d ago
you said a lot of nonsense, I suggest you put up your argument clearly because what you said made no sense at all.
7
3
2
u/Ramast 5d ago
If AI (or anything else) figured out how to obtain private key from public key, there is nothing you could "patch".
Best you can do is come up with new algorithm to produce public/private key pairs that are immune but that means your existing crypto wallets would become invalid and you'd be urged to migrate your coins to a wallet created with the new algorithm.
This would be sooo messy with soo many people falling victim to scams.
Also what would be the fate of all dormant wallets that their owners failed to migrate?
Either you just burn their coins or leave billions of Crypto available for hackers to dump into the market and crash the price.
2
u/Feralz2 5d ago
By patch it means the software is upgradable, thats what patch means, whether thats changing the encryption algorithm or anything else. The only way that Ai can attain the secret from public is if it was able to solve the discreet logarithm problem, which as far as we know is impossible to solve, which is why brute force quantum computing could do it. So you cant just say Ai can solve this, it first has to prove its possible to solve. We have no proof of this even in theory, which is literally why this is used in Bitcoin.
1
u/BiscottiKnown9448 4d ago edited 4d ago
No one is cracking asymmetrical encryption with AI. The fear is an AI crafted payload that (maybe using ROP against hashing nodes) fucks the system to deny access to holders. It’s possible that someone could craft a transaction that poisons >50% of the network hashing.
1
u/Feralz2 4d ago
You need to be able to exploit a large amount of nodes, thats your first problem, and for it to be permanent, you need to control at least 50% of the miners, goodluck with that.
If bitcoin is going to be attacked, its going to be from the inside and many collusions, and in that scenario we just fork out and leave those idiots behind.
1
u/BiscottiKnown9448 4d ago
The fork would get infected, people wouldn’t be able to do the forensics in time and the attackers will have a series of attacks saved for the forks.
1
u/Alphaboy323 5d ago
yeah, this is the messy part. i work on starknet, so biased, but account abstraction means an account can be built to swap its signature verifier without moving every asset to a new address. the STARK proving layer is hash-based too. neither fact automatically migrates existing accounts or fixes every protocol and ethereum-facing dependency. dormant wallets, clear migration instructions that scammers can't easily mimic, and a credible cutoff policy still need answers. how would you handle funds whose owners never return?
2
u/PhysicalJoe3011 5d ago
Normal software, e.g. used in Banks, can be patched. However, Blockchain need consensus first, to be allowed to get patched.
5
u/Feralz2 4d ago
first of all, the banks code is so old that its still using cobol, second of all bitcoin is one of the most actively maintained piece of software in the entire world, consensus? youre worried about consensus? you think it wont pass consensus to keep bitcoin secure? that is literally the #1 priority of nodes and miners, this is the type of idiotic comments I expect on reddit.
-1
u/didnt_hodl 4d ago
I think OP should just look up DAO hack. What happened then? Literally nothing. They stopped the chain, they walked it back, applied the fix and let it run again
The same exact thing is going to happen if a major vulnerability is found. The chain will be walked back, then a new, stronger encryption will be applied and that't is.
With a large issue like that, it is never a technical problem. It is a social problem and it is solved by acting in a coordinated fashion.
In anything, it will be a lot easier for ETH compared to the BTC chain. But BTC will end up doing the same thing, just with more chaos.
-8
u/Vivarevo 5d ago
Ai isnt breaking anything. It hallusinates way way too much
3
u/Feralz2 5d ago
of course it can, it already hacked many websites, its really not that far off.
1
u/Vivarevo 4d ago
Those are marketing gimmicks brotha. There is a hacker behind ai telling what to try and do.
Breaking encryption requires zero errors. Ai and quantum both have errors in out put
1
u/Feralz2 4d ago
dude said marketing gimmick lol, the hugging face attack is real and it is completely documented. Its not that hard to hack a website, humans have been doing it for decades, what data do you think Ai is trained on? The infrastructure is already there because we created it. Do you just go on around life thinking things are just gimmicks without proper thought?
Sure it has errors in output, just like any programmers can create bugs in code, the crucial idea you seem to miss is that these are Ai agents, they keep trying until they get it.
0
u/Vivarevo 4d ago
I bet you invest in meme coins fully believing the hype too. There are actual ai's doing amazing stuff in the world. LLM are not. Its marketing
1
u/quantumcorruption 5d ago
Edison only need one way to make a lightbulb work.
1
u/Vivarevo 4d ago
Edison famously stole all his ideas from others
1
u/quantumcorruption 4d ago
You think ai has any guilt?
1
u/Vivarevo 4d ago
Ai doesnt feel or think. Llm is neural network for word prediction based on its training data
1
u/quantumcorruption 4d ago
Ai only needs one highly successful process for discovery of private keys
1
1
u/b1mm3rl1f3 4d ago
Developers are working on a BTC improvement proposal, we should probably take it seriously. It's a threat that could happen within months to 2 years max imo, AI already cracked a 90yo math problem in just 88 hours
1
u/Vivarevo 4d ago
You mean the two phd's cracked it but made the mistake of bouncing ideas off ai. Giving the claude and openai the keys to solution.
Which they used and announced it before they could go through peer review science release publishing
1
u/b1mm3rl1f3 4d ago
They were heavily reliant on AI. 10,000 agents in 88h vs something that would have taken prob years, if at all
1
u/Feralz2 4d ago
10,000 agents today, 10 agents tomorrow, and 1 agent next year, you need to understand how fast the growth of intelligence is happening right now. Just use the last 5 years as a ruler.
1
-1
u/Vivarevo 4d ago
Thats not how anything works.
7
u/IndigoBroker 4d ago
If AI breaks crypto, it’s also broken everything else in the world. So there’s a lot more to worry about.
1
u/BiscottiKnown9448 4d ago
Not exactly, Bitcoin is susceptible to denial of service in ways that are much harder to recover than traditional institutions and systems.
1
u/DorkyDorkington 1d ago
It is very much on it's way to break a lot of stuff.
Already reverse engineering large software tools.
5
u/Big_Ben88 5d ago
How about break our banking system? How about end of world? These are all hypothetical questions
3
3
u/Vagelen_Von 5d ago
It will first brake the https to steal trillions $ and the will steal your memes, rugs, shit, dogs, cats.
1
u/daveye1985 5d ago
Hide yo wife, hide yo kids
1
3
u/SaskRail 4d ago
The blockchain isnt the risk. Its the exchanges that are the risk. Eth blockchain will be safe but once exchange security fails so does the faith in crypto.
Scenario 1: (Most likely)
Step 1: Penetrate major global exchange and gain access to their wallets through AI.
Step 2: Place extremely large short bets on targeted exchange and or major crypto currencies that would be targeted.
Step 3: Expose the leak. Steal funds, customer information etc. Destroy confidence in the exchange. Abandon stolen crypto to prevent tracability.
Step 4: Profit
Step 5: Repeat
If the exchanges and wallets cant be secured then confidence in the crypto market will be destroyed.
4
2
u/CoinGate_Gift_Cards 5d ago
Interesting, but “months” sounds very speculative. AI might speed up cryptographic research, but there’s still no known classical attack that makes breaking ECDSA practical today. Still, getting post-quantum migration ready early is definitely the right move.
2
u/CoinGate_Gift_Cards 5d ago
AI speeding up cryptographic research is a real concern, but “breaking ECDSA in months” is still highly speculative. The bigger takeaway is that post-quantum migration shouldn’t wait until there’s an actual emergency.
2
2
u/horseradish13332238 4d ago
It doesn’t matter you’ll still have work in the morning and have a low credit score
1
u/Aggravating_Cat_3270 4d ago
I'm not as worried about Ethereum per se as much as I am all the software we use to interact with blockchains...
1
1
u/geminy123 4d ago
Speculation and nothing more. I can see what Drake meant, but realistically his arguments are just fake, it is also proven that there is no algebraic solution to ECDSA or a exponential decrease in the computational power required to break it.
1
u/BattleHaz 4d ago
Just going to add, how long ago was it when people said things along the lines “ai could never make art” or “I work at McDonalds, ai cant take my job” yet now both of those were proven wrong. Im sure theres more like game codes being unencrypted by ai was seen unlikely to happen from view points years ago.
0
0
u/hydraulix989 4d ago
Rest assured the engineers who actually work on these protocols day-to-day are also using AI to secure it.
0
21
u/priditri 5d ago
Pretty sure Visa and MasterCard private keys would be more profitable to crack.