This week, Ethereum researchers warned AI could break the signatures securing Bitcoin and Ethereum “in months, not years” in the worst case, well before quantum computers arrive.
This information didn’t sit well with early Bitcoin pioneer and Blockstream CEO Adam Back, who criticized Ethereum’s early design decisions in an X post.
Back was particularly critical of Ethereum’s early developers, describing them as inexperienced, saying that they “reimplemented around an obviously broken architecture” despite warning attempts.
The Blockstream CEO believes Bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto‘s choice of the Unspent Transaction Output (UTXO) model for the BTC network reflected a deeper understanding of distributed systems and peer-to-peer network design.
“It’s almost like Satoshi knew something about distributed systems,” Back said in support of Bitcoin’s UTXO model.
UTXO in this context is short for “Unspent Transaction Output” model, which works like physical cash, where discrete coins or outputs are spent and new ones are created, used by blockchains such as Bitcoin and Cardano.
Ethereum does not use UTXO but rather utilizes an account-based model (similar to a traditional bank ledger), where each user or smart contract has a persistent balance and state that updates directly with each transaction.
While Ethereum currently relies on accounts, ETH researchers have proposed experimental frameworks to introduce optional UTXO-style features, such as Ethereum Improvement Proposal EIP-8141, which introduces a new transaction type (0x06, or Frame Transactions) designed to achieve native account abstraction and post-quantum readiness.
What happened?
Ethereum researcher Justin Drake, in an X post on Wednesday, told the crypto industry to start preparing for “bunker mode,” warning that artificial intelligence could find a way to break the mathematics protecting Bitcoin and Ethereum wallets in the worst case “in months, not years.”
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Accordingly, Drake urged large holders to begin a gradual move of their funds to fresh addresses.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin weighed in on Drake’s take, saying he wouldn’t recommend anyone scramble to move their funds to new wallets at the moment, but added that the risk from AI-accelerated math remains something that should be taken seriously.
“I don’t recommend anyone scramble to move their funds to new wallets today. But we should take the risks to cryptography from AI-accelerated math seriously, and minimize our exposure to not just quantum-vulnerable cryptography but also potentially AI-vulnerable cryptography,” Buterin wrote on X.
