Ethereum researchers urge 'bunker mode' as AI-accelerated math threatens wallet crypto
Ethereum researcher Justin Drake called on the blockchain industry in a post on X to prepare a "bunker mode," recommending users move funds to addresses that have never signed a transaction, since signing exposes the public key from which an attacker could theoretically derive the private key. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin agreed in a reply but warned against moving too fast, saying he has lost more money to botched migrations than to hacks. No one has yet broken the current ECDSA signature scheme in practice, and Buterin argues long-term for an architecture relying as much as possible on hash functions alone, since even lattice-based schemes often considered quantum-safe could be weakened by AI advances.
It signals that AI-assisted math could shrink the buffer protecting cryptographic security, pushing the blockchain industry to debate migration and defenses early.