Fears that artificial intelligence could break the cryptography protecting Bitcoin have created debate across crypto. Helius CEO Mert Mumtaz and Ledger Chief Technology Officer Charles Guillemet have pushed back against claims that a major security failure could happen soon. They say AI’s progress in mathematics deserves attention, but it does not prove that Bitcoin’s security is about to fail.
Guillemet, who leads technology at crypto hardware wallet maker Ledger, argued in his post on X that a break in public-key cryptography would affect much more than Bitcoin. Secure websites, banks, private messages and parts of critical infrastructure could also face serious risks.
The debate grew after security researchers warned that AI could help find weaknesses in the maths behind crypto wallets. This matters because Bitcoin uses cryptography to protect wallets and approve transactions. If an attacker could work out a wallet’s private key, they could steal its funds.
If you’re worried about AI breaking ECDSA and wiping out your Bitcoin in the next few months, at minimal cost, here’s my advice: take your pills
1️⃣ If Asymmetric cryptography falls, Bitcoin will be the least of our problems.
TLS breaks, banking systems are in trouble, secure communications go out the window, and critical infrastructure becomes much easier to attack. Worrying about your coins at that point is like worrying about your Wi-Fi password while the house is on fire.
2️⃣ Nothing indicates we’re anywhere near such a breakthrough.
The latest mathematical results are impressive, sure. Take the recent integer multiplication result, which claims to beat the n.log n barrier with an exponent improvement of 2^-182. That’s genuinely interesting mathematics, but hardly a practical breakthrough. It doesn’t change our understanding of how to break ECDSA.
And if your logic is that nothing can be trusted until it’s proven unbreakable, congratulations. By that standard, nothing is safe, including hashes.
Keep an eye on the research. Take cryptographic risks seriously. But let’s not confuse theoretical progress with an imminent cryptographic apocalypse.
Just take your pills.
— Charles Guillemet (@P3b7_) October 9, 2026
Helius and Ledger leaders say fear is running ahead of proof
Guillemet also said recent mathematical advances do not show that anyone is close to breaking Bitcoin’s ECDSA security. ECDSA is a digital signature system that helps prove a transaction was approved by the wallet owner. Guillemet’s point is that a new maths result is not the same as a working attack.
Mumtaz, co-founder and CEO of Helius, a company that builds infrastructure for the Solana network, made a similar argument in his post. He said AI may help researchers find mistakes, but that does not mean it can suddenly break every major blockchain. He also warned that fear of a small research advance could trigger a market sell-off before a real threat exists.
was surprised to see so much panic today, likely made worse by other things like rates and oil that distorted the actual substance in the AI/math talks
tl;dr — you’re all gonna be fine. the leading chains of today have ample means to be able to respond to something like this in the unlikely scenario of it happening
longer:
i) is AI getting better at math? yes
does that imply that it will suddenly shatter foundational cryptography concepts? no
“computer smart. therefore the past work of all mathematicians is probably wrong.” is not a logical chain with basis
sure, AI will find flaws in past human work in many areas — in the same way humans themselves find flaws from other humans in many areas. this is how science works
if we find issues, we discuss them, fix them, and evolve
it takes large leaps of complete doomerism to assume that all teams, individuals, and ecosystems will fail at literally everything ranging from planning to prediction to detection to mitigation on all time horizons simultaneously
further, in these scenarios, AI is exclusively seen as a tool *only* for max destruction but never as a thing capable of a solution
so, it can apparently break everything but not fix anything. i hope you can see the bias here
for one, we already know this to be false given recent scaling of formal verification via ai
it is of course easier for AI to make progress in fields and topics that are relatively less looked at vs something like foundational cryptography which all intelligence agencies, nation states, and high-level mathematicians are heavily incentivized to break, all the time
ii) the most unhinged doomsday scenarios assume an instantaneous attack with no lead time by a random person outside of law and jurisdiction, which I would posit is simply not possible
even ignoring the fact that the labs would get there first (and hence the government)
it’s not as if one can just break all cryptography on all chains via their beefed up cloud hosts over a few hours or days or even months
that not only assumes an algorithmic advancement with unfathomable magnitudes of improvement but also completely ignores the gargantuan operational complexity and opportunity cost of doing a global heist (vs the trillion other more important things you can do with an ECC break)
it would be vastly impressive if a slight speedup could be found, but the speedups required to fulfill the doomsday fantasies of people on here are not grounded in anything
iii) importantly, assume I am completely wrong for all of the above
well even in that case, upgrading the systems in a world where ECC breaks is entirely possible and feasible (and has been worked on for decades)
in fact, there are many ways of doing it that we know of depending on the existing constraints of the system!
imo, the biggest “risk” in all this is that a frontier lab publishes something about a slight speedup in the future, and then everyone extrapolates that to default to panic which then leads to a selloff like today
I don’t think this is all bad because it never really hurts to think about and plan for these things on the protocol level, but the “retail” panic was certainly a huge self-own by the people pushing this stuff
doomerism is not going to win in crypto
— mert (@mert) October 8, 2026
Mumtaz was responding to a post by Dev, known as zkDragon, who argued that there had been no demonstrated attack on the cryptography in question and that researchers have other security methods to explore. Mumtaz also said AI could help find and fix software weaknesses, not just create new risks. DeFi Planet explored this side of the issue in its report on how AI could help verify software and find flaws.
Also Read: Vitalik Buterin Rejects AI Doomsday Fears and Defends Crypto Security
Traders disagree on whether the bigger risk is the threat or the panic
Not everyone found the reassurance convincing. Crypto user pwnmachine argued that crypto is not a bank and that stolen funds can be difficult to recover. If the cryptography behind major networks failed, users might not receive the kind of support they expect from traditional financial institutions.
Makes sense but crypto isn’t a bank.
State sponsored hackers have already stolen billions and mostly gotten away with it.
A bank hack is way harder to walk away from. If something actually breaks, nobody’s rushing to bail the industry out it’d be the last thing anyone prioritises
— pwnmachine 👾 (@princechaddha) October 9, 2026
Other users focused on how quickly fear can spread. Julius crypt said people often rush to seek certainty when events become noisy. LOID made a narrower point. Even a small improvement in attack methods could cause market panic if traders assume it means a full break is near.
READ ALSO: If Only 10,000 Bitcoin Are at Quantum Risk, Is the Threat Being Overstated?
@mert Funny how quickly people want certainty and reassurance when things get noisy. Sometimes the smarter move is simply to stay quiet and think.
— Julius crypt (@Juliuscrypt1) October 8, 2026
The strongest sign of how this debate can affect markets came from metavestor, who said they had Another user, @metavestor, said they sold most of their spot crypto holdings after reading the arguments. The user said the uncertainty had become too stressful, even after considering the counterarguments. This is one person’s decision, not proof of a bigger investor exit, but it shows how a possible possible future threat can affect trading choices.
Honestly, I sold most of my spot crypto and offboarded today. It’s just not worth the headache.
I don’t want to check every single headline about AI math and cryptography research wondering if I’m about to get rugged. I don’t want to wonder if every ancient BTC address making a transfer is ECDSA being cracked.
I had already refocused most of my time and energy on equities at this point, and Justin Drake’s post just killed the rest of my desire to hold crypto. This isn’t impulsive, I read hours of counterarguments.
1. People say this is incredibly unlikely. I just don’t trust any human to predict the capability ceiling of superhuman mathematical AI. Have seen people be wrong about AI capability ceiling over and over.
2. What if I miss the next great bull cycle? Honestly, that’s fine, there’s plenty of other assets to trade with less stress of existential left tail risk.
3. People say that we would have bigger problems. Yes, I know that banks etc would also be at risk and society would be a clusterfuck, but the government should step in to save my money (and society) at that point. I don’t know that they will for crypto. Plus, why would a malicious practitioner rather burn the whole world down over just stealing infinite crypto?
4. People say this is just like Quantum FUD. Nah, this is much more concrete and near term. This doesn’t require a new scientific breakthrough, only the continued march of AI progress that we’ve been scaling on for years.
I got into crypto as a techno optimist but there’s other investment expressions of that now. The development of AI (and recently the intersection of bio x AI) is more intellectually interesting to me. Being in crypto feels like being short AI progress, and I do not want to be short AI progress.
This is not investment advice, everyone should decide for themselves how they feel about the topic. I am just one random human being on the internet, expressing my thoughts.
— metavestor (@metavestor) October 9, 2026
DeFi Planet has also examined how crypto security risks change as attackers find new ways to target users. The lesson is not to ignore new research, but to separate a possible weakness from a proven attack.
The debate is about preparation, not a confirmed break in Bitcoin’s security. Researchers need to keep testing cryptographic systems, and blockchain teams need plans to upgrade them if needed. Traders, meanwhile, face a separate risk. Some are selling in panic based on claims that have not been proven. So, both the technology and the market need clear evidence, not guesses.
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