Liron Shapira, the co-founder and CEO of Relationship Hero, recently claimed there was a 50% chance that Bitcoin (BTC -0.74%) would crash by more than 50% within two years as AI undermined its security features. Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum (ETH -0.12%), dismissed that notion in a post on X, saying he took the “opposite side” of that view.
Buterin argued that AI would strengthen cybersecurity platforms just as much as it enabled new attacks, that Bitcoin was already capable of countering most security challenges, and that the risk of actual cracks appearing in Bitcoin’s consensus mechanism was “tiny.”
Image source: Getty Images.
Buterin said that the same logic applied to Ether, which he assumed Shapira was also bearish on. He told Shapira that he’d “offer a bet” against his gloomy prediction, but that he was “basically taking this bet with 90% of my net worth already” through his Ether holdings. Let’s see why Buterin’s optimistic outlook is great news for crypto investors.
Are sunnier days ahead for Bitcoin?
Bitcoin is still mined with the energy-intensive proof-of-work (PoW) consensus mechanism, which requires powerful application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) to mine profitably. More than 20 million of Bitcoin’s maximum supply of 21 million tokens have already been mined, and its mining rewards are halved every four years. That scarcity makes it more comparable to gold than other cryptocurrencies, and the bulls believe it will follow gold’s lead as a hedge against inflation and the devaluation of fiat currencies.
Today’s Change
(-0.74%) $-564.61
Current Price
$75,393.00
Key Data Points
Market Cap
Day’s Range
$75151.00 – $76413.00
52wk Range
$57945.16 – $126079.89
Volume
31.7B
On its own, it would take the world’s most advanced AI applications millions of years to crack Bitcoin’s cryptographic locks. In theory, quantum computers could eventually reverse engineer Bitcoin’s public keys to find their private keys. Still, Bitcoin’s developers are already countering that threat with hidden public keys and quantum-proof locks.
Therefore, there’s no real threat of AI applications or quantum computers “breaking” Bitcoin. Instead, AI applications could indirectly disrupt Bitcoin with more sophisticated phishing scams, which trick users into handing over their seed phrases, but those types of attacks will also threaten traditional banking accounts.
What’s next for the crypto market?
Bitcoin, Ether, and most other cryptocurrencies are trading far below their all-time highs because geopolitical conflicts, fears of interest rate hikes, and other macro headwinds are driving investors toward more conservative investments. Investors should focus on those challenges — rather than the speculation about AI and quantum computing — to see if the crypto market will finally recover over the next few months.
Leo Sun has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin and Ethereum. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.