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The Bitcoin Policy Institute and dozens of leading crypto industry companies have joined forces in an unprecedented coalition, demanding that the world's largest AI labs provide trusted open-source developers with reliable access to cutting-edge artificial intelligence models. This is not merely a matter of convenience, but a critical necessity for protecting financial infrastructure managing trillions of dollars.

Infrastructure Defenders Left Without the Strongest Tools

In an open letter signed by dozens of organizations from the digital asset, cybersecurity, and open-source development sectors, the authors emphasize: in recent weeks, it has become clear that specialists protecting digital asset infrastructure urgently need the latest AI capabilities for thorough security verification. Without this, it becomes increasingly difficult for them to counter sophisticated attackers.

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

Behind this software are the personal funds of millions of people. These are pension savings, business capital, reserve funds, and family wealth. A single vulnerability can take away a lifetime of savings. This is precisely why digital assets are so attractive to cyberattacks.

Many cryptocurrencies are designed in such a way that the path from a hack to losing money is short. Under these conditions, it is especially important to find and close vulnerabilities in advance, the authors emphasize. Cutting-edge AI, meanwhile, changes 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 cyberattack tools.

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

Restrictions on public frontier systems often block legitimate security work. As a result, defenders are forced to conduct critical reviews 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, sophisticated attackers, possibly from other countries, are conducting continuous AI-assisted attacks, and small teams struggle to keep up with such a pace.

Even when systems remain secure, 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 reviewing 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 create more secure code, as well as find and fix vulnerabilities before losses occur. The coalition asks frontier AI labs to create or expand standing 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" compute resources and autonomous agent work on long-running tasks—without these, meaningful security reviews cannot be conducted.

Separately, the coalition requests secure environments for analyzing private or closed-source code, as well as participation rights for small, non-profit, and independent maintainers on par with large companies and governments. The final item on the list is a direct channel for coordinated vulnerability reporting, remediation, and contact with lab security teams.

The digital asset industry is ready to help identify trusted participants, establish standards, and coordinate remediation when issues are found. Frontier AI, in the authors' view, 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 asset, cybersecurity, and open-source sectors.

Expert commentary from Cryptalist: This move is a logical and timely demand. While AI labs grant access to their models only to select corporate partners, defenders of decentralized networks remain at a deliberate disadvantage against state-sponsored and well-funded hacker groups. If the industry wants to preserve trust in open financial infrastructure, access to frontier AI tools must become a security standard, not a privilege.