Bitcoin and ether holders urged to enter ‘bunker mode’ against possible AI attacks
Read More: Crypto researchers cut Bitcoin and Ethereum quantum attack estimate by 50%
The timelines don't line up. The Ethereum Foundation has set December 2029 as its target for moving the network onto quantum-resistant cryptography.
But Drake's worst case puts a classical break years earlier than that.
Quantum resistance has limits
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin agreed the risk is real and extended it to some of the replacements developers have been counting on.
Some quantum-resistant designs use lattice-based cryptography, mathematical problems believed to be hard for both ordinary and quantum computers, and the approach underlies a digital-signature standard approved by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology.
"There is a good chance that the concrete security of lattices will take serious hits from the next two years of AI math," Buterin wrote on X.“ If AI will bring us 50 years of math in 2 years, then that 50 years of math may very plausibly include a "naive factoring -> GNFS" level of improvement to our ability to break lattices.
Ethereum's proposed long-term rebuild increasingly favors hash-based signatures, which turn information into digital fingerprints designed to be hard to reverse. Buterin sees fewer openings for unexpected shortcuts in those designs, though he acknowledged they could also face attacks.
Drake recommended that sophisticated holders move first, shifting funds to addresses whose public keys have never appeared onchain, which withholds the starting point the attack would need. On the other hand, Buterin backed reducing public-key exposure where practical, but told holders not to rush, warning that mistakes during a migration can cause losses of their own.
"I personally have lost more money in botched migrations than I have lost in all hacks combined," he wrote.