Calle, the head of the security group Red Team, describes the current security state of the Bitcoin ecosystem in one concise phrase: “Bitcoin is burning”. More specifically, that refers to the entire software layer surrounding Bitcoin, including wallets, exchanges, Lightning Network implementations, and whatever runs alongside them.
According to Calle, attackers have been using AI to find and exploit vulnerabilities, and he deliberately avoids detailing the methods out of concern that it might give bad actors ideas. What is more alarming is that AI eliminates the information advantage that once shielded software: previously, many vulnerabilities remained safe simply because only a handful of people had the skills to exploit them.
“There are no more secrets in software,” Calle said. “There is no longer the information asymmetry that used to be used to create security theater or security through obscurity. That era is over.”
The technical barrier to exploitation has also collapsed. “A simple exploit can now be executed end-to-end by someone who wouldn’t know how to do it without AI,” he said. And Bitcoin is facing this sooner than other industries for a straightforward reason: for attackers, “the first thing you want to attack is internet money.” He believes other software sectors will experience the same thing, just later.
A little-noticed detail that paints a more complex picture: defenders themselves must also use AI, yet U.S. frontier models are heavily restricted in sensitive domains like cybersecurity. Calle noted that he had encountered cases where U.S. models refused to help find vulnerabilities, and even refused to assist in patching bugs that developers had already identified, prompting him to switch to Chinese AI models. “It’s not even close,” he said, comparing their practical utility. While acknowledging that U.S. models remain smarter overall, overly strict guardrails make them less valuable for concrete security work.
The lesson here is not unique to crypto. When the advantage belongs to whichever side has access to better tools, the race between AI-driven attack and defense begins where digital money lives on the internet—namely, with Bitcoin.