Crypto news

The Bitcoin Policy Institute, together with dozens of companies from the digital assets sector, has published an open letter to the world's leading AI labs. The coalition insists on providing trusted open-source developers with reliable access to cutting-edge artificial intelligence models to strengthen the security of financial infrastructure.

Dozens of organizations representing digital assets, cybersecurity, and open-source development have signed the letter. Among them are major custodians, payment services, security firms, as well as independent maintainers whose business directly depends on the integrity of open infrastructure and libraries.

Defenders are left without the strongest tools

In the open letter, the authors emphasize that the need for such access has become evident over the past few weeks. Specialists ensuring the security of digital asset infrastructure and open-source software urgently need the latest AI capabilities to fully verify system security. Without this, it becomes increasingly difficult for them to counter sophisticated attacks by malicious actors.

Open source has long become financial infrastructure. According to the authors' estimates, the Bitcoin network alone safeguards more than a trillion dollars, and across the entire digital asset ecosystem—from wallets, signing devices, cryptographic libraries, node software, custodial systems, exchanges, and payment networks—the figure already runs into trillions of dollars. This infrastructure is openly developed by companies, non-profit organizations, independent researchers, and grant-funded maintainers.

Behind this software stand the personal funds of millions of people. These are retirement savings, business capital, reserve funds, and family wealth, so a single vulnerability can take away a lifetime of savings. Digital assets attract cyberattacks precisely for this reason.

Many cryptocurrencies are structured as bearer assets, so the path from a hack to losing money is short. Under such conditions, it is especially important to find and close vulnerabilities in advance, the authors of the letter emphasize. Cutting-edge AI is meanwhile changing the economics for both security researchers and attackers.

Defenders occupy the least privileged position

Advanced models are capable of reviewing large codebases, identifying potential weaknesses, and accelerating complex technical work—for both defenders and attackers alike. The authors expect these capabilities to continue spreading through public open-source models, unauthorized access to corporate systems, and specialized tools for cyberattacks.

Today, leading labs and select partners see new cyber capabilities months before they reach the rest of the ecosystem. At the same time, access pathways to such tools for qualified defenders remain limited and inconsistent. Many digital asset developers, including Bitcoin Core maintainers, are excluded from lab programs.

Restrictions on public frontier systems often block legitimate security work. As a result, defenders are forced to conduct critical checks on less powerful open-weight models. According to the letter's authors, developers occupy the most vulnerable position in the entire security framework surrounding AI.

The Bitcoin Policy Institute received several independent reports from open-source maintainers. According to them, experienced attackers, possibly from other countries, are conducting continuous AI-assisted attacks, and small teams find it difficult to sustain such a pace.

Even when systems remain protected, responding to persistent and sophisticated activity diverts scarce maintainer resources away from development and routine security work. Bitcoin developers and other security researchers are around the clock checking wallets, libraries, protocols, and open tools using available open-weight models, the authors add.

What the coalition asks of the labs

Early access and reasonable compute budgets would help key developers write more secure code, as well as find and fix vulnerabilities before losses occur. The coalition asks frontier AI labs to create or expand permanent trusted access programs for qualified defenders of open financial infrastructure.

Such programs should provide early, controlled access to the strongest cyber models and, where appropriate, pre-release versions. Among the conditions, the authors also cite "sufficient" computing power and autonomous agents working on long-running tasks—without this, meaningful security testing cannot be conducted.

Separately, the coalition asks for secure environments for analyzing private or closed-source code, as well as granting participation rights to small, non-profit, and independent maintainers on par with large companies and states. The final item on the list is a direct channel through which vulnerabilities can be reported in a coordinated manner, remediated, and contact established with lab security teams.

The digital asset industry is ready to help identify trusted participants, establish standards, and coordinate remediation when issues are discovered. Frontier AI, according to the authors, could become one of the most powerful defensive technologies in history—but only with fair access to such systems.

The letter was signed by representatives of the Bitcoin Policy Institute, Coinbase, Block, Blockstream, BitGo, Anchorage Digital, Bitwise, Trezor, MARA, Foundry, Galaxy, Strategy, Strike, and River, as well as dozens of other participants from the digital assets, cybersecurity, and open-source sectors.

My comment: This step is a long-overdue signal to the market. While labs monopolize access to the most powerful models, defenders of open infrastructure remain in a knowingly losing position against well-funded cybercriminal groups. If the AI giants do not open their doors, we risk seeing a wave of incidents that will undermine trust in digital assets as a whole, and that will hit everyone—from retail investors to institutions.