Overview
- On Monday, Sept. 7, 2026, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin publicly disputed investor Liron Shapira’s prediction that AI could cut Bitcoin’s price by more than half within two years.
- Buterin said the chance of a direct cryptographic break of Bitcoin’s hashes or proof-of-work is tiny and argued most realistic threats target node software, wallets, exchanges or mining pools that can be patched with ordinary upgrades.
- He disclosed that about 90% of his personal net worth is aligned with the view that Bitcoin’s cryptographic base will hold, a signal reporters say could influence investor sentiment.
- Coverage and security experts point to recent incidents, such as weak wallet entropy in COLDCARD devices that exposed keys, to show how custody and implementation bugs can cause large losses without breaking Bitcoin’s consensus rules.
- Industry groups led by the Bitcoin Policy Institute and more than 40 organizations have urged AI labs to give vetted security teams controlled access to advanced models so defenders can find and fix vulnerabilities before attackers do.