Even if Ethereum researcher Justin Drake’s assessment that artificial intelligence could break cryptography ultimately proves correct, critics argue that "bunker mode" is an impractical suggestion and unlikely to safeguard your crypto assets.
If rising geopolitical tensions weren’t enough to cause concern, now it’s the crypto industry’s turn to go into nuclear alert mode.
The industry is actively debating a cryptographic doomsday scenario: attackers could use AI scenarios that once seemed distant but are now more plausible to derive private keys from public keys, putting everyone’s encrypted assets at risk.
Last Wednesday, Drake called for the development of a "safe mode" plan, arguing that AI's "humbling" advances could accelerate the discovery of mathematical attacks that ultimately "break" cryptography:
In my view, it is reasonable to prepare now for the possibility that ECDSA [Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm] could become obsolete before Q-day, with the worst-case scenario being months rather than years.
Drake believes the industry should begin planning a controlled migration to move assets to new addresses whose public keys have not been exposed, reducing the information available to potential attackers.
But what is the basis for his warning? Is panic really necessary?
Is crypto panic justified?
Drake’s concern is not only that AI might accelerate the arrival of quantum computers and break cryptography, but also that AI systems could help uncover mathematical attacks based on classical computing that human cryptanalysts have overlooked.
He believes that elliptic curve cryptography, which underpins most blockchains, is more vulnerable to such breakthroughs than hash functions, because its mathematical structure is more complex, implying the possibility of a classical algorithm capable of breaking elliptic curve cryptography.
Johns Hopkins University cryptography professor Matthew Green also commented on Drake’s assessment, further intensifying the panic already sweeping through the crypto industry.
I think we may lose public-key cryptography.
Lucien Bourdon, a Bitcoin analyst at Trezor hardware wallet, told Magazine:
There is currently no credible, publicly disclosed progress in breaking the mathematics behind ECDSA, whether through AI or any other means.
He said that any AI-generated math papers recently released by OpenAI have not included attacks on ECDSA—though Drake finds this more suspicious than reassuring. Drake’s other argument is that elliptic curves have more mathematical structure than hash functions and are therefore potentially easier to break.
“He didn’t specify exactly how to do it,” Bourdon said. “He also referred to the timeline as the worst-case scenario and told people not to rush.”
Zach Herbert, CEO and co-founder of FoundationHQ, told Magazine that if the extended public key (xpub) has already been shared with a wallet app or third party, moving funds to a new address may not be sufficient.
In this case, he said, "They already have the information needed to derive the public key you want to hide."
MetaMask founder and CEO Taylor Monahan also noted that if cryptography truly fails, the value of your assets will no longer be your only concern:
Why simply transferring coins may not be enough
Herbert said that an xpub allows a wallet to generate multiple public keys for the same account, including those corresponding to addresses that have never been used.
If the wallet app or third party already has this information, transferring funds to a new address under the same account may not hide the new address's public key from the recipient.
If ECDSA were truly practically broken, an attacker could recover the corresponding private key without touching your hardware wallet.
StarkWare co-founder and CEO Eli Ben-Sasson told Magazine:
No, this is clearly insufficient for protection.
In addition to simply moving your coins, if you plan to continue using them in the future, you’ll need to download a new type of wallet.
He said that if a breach occurs, it’s not just wallet signatures that are affected—the infrastructure-level signatures and consensus mechanisms of Ethereum would also need to be addressed, and the Kate-Zaverucha-Goldberg (KZG) polynomial commitment scheme used in data blobs would be impacted as well.
He added that gas fees are also likely to rise significantly, as many features will stop working.
On Bitcoin, certain address types conceal the full public key through cryptographic hashing until the funds are spent. If the relevant hash function remains secure, this provides an additional layer of protection against attackers attempting to derive the private key from the public key. In contrast, Taproot addresses expose the public key directly on the blockchain.
Create a P2PKH public key hash to receive payments. Source: Bitcoin.org
Bourdon noted that common SegWit addresses, which begin with bc1q, hide the public key until spending, and wallets like Trezor generate new receiving addresses to reduce address reuse.
“There’s nothing to be done right now,” he said, adding that panic-driven migrations only do more harm than good. “People who rush to move their funds will make mistakes, and scammers will use stories like these to approach them.”
It is also worth noting that every time you spend Bitcoin, the public key is exposed in the mempool, which can also provide an opportunity for attackers.
Not all crypto assets are the same
Some blockchains are already preparing for cryptographic threats, although their proposed solutions vary.
On the AI-focused NEAR Protocol, users can add a quantum-safe FIPS-204 key to their existing mainnet account in a single transaction without migrating assets; wallets like Meteor also support quantum-safe signatures. This relies on lattice-based cryptography, but Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin has expressed concerns that such solutions may also be equally vulnerable.
Ethereum is developing a broader post-quantum roadmap, incorporating hash-based signatures and ZK-proof aggregation to cover all aspects, from transaction signing to consensus and data security. It has also prepared a set of emergency hard fork and recovery proposals on paper.
In a March 2024 post, Vitalik Buterin outlined a potential hard fork proposal: rolling back blocks after the start of a large-scale theft, disabling traditional wallet transactions, and allowing users to recover funds via zero-knowledge proof seed phrases.
Max Shannon, Senior Research Associate at Bitwise Europe, said this is still just a proposal “without a clear timeline.”
Although no feasible attack has been demonstrated yet, he advises users to transition to quantum-safe signatures from a long-term perspective.
Hard fork in the event of a quantum emergency. Source: Eth Research
Starknet’s account abstraction architecture allows users to switch signing schemes without moving funds to a new address. Ben-Sasson stated that the core technology doesn’t need to change, “because account abstraction means you can use any signing scheme.”
However, he noted that other components still require attention, including certain aspects of the network state tree design and its reliance on Ethereum's security.
For Solana users, switching to a new address won’t help, since public keys are exposed by default—but they can migrate their funds to a post-quantum secure wallet like Winter Wallet.
Jacob Creech, Vice President of Technology at the Solana Foundation, said that if its signature scheme were to be compromised, Solana users do not need to enter "safe mode."
A network upgrade would allow users to prove ownership of their secret seed using hash-based proofs and migrate their accounts to a more secure signing scheme. He said that a proof of concept already exists, but the upgrade itself has not yet been deployed.
So, should cryptocurrency holders panic?
Shannon said Bitwise is not currently concerned about this theoretical risk, but “it’s worth remaining cautious.”
“We can discuss exposing the new address and xpub as a thought experiment,” Herbert said, “but I won’t pretend these steps constitute an actual solution for that scenario.”
He stated that a software update "will not automatically protect these coins," as some users are still using old devices, complex multisignature setups, or holding bitcoins that have been inactive for years.
Bourdon reminds crypto holders to carefully examine their sources, as Drake’s warning also mentioned Ethereum’s evolution toward hash-based cryptography that he recommended.
“So, a warning about an unproven threat also became a promotion for Ethereum’s roadmap,” he said.
This doesn't prove Drake is wrong, but there is currently no evidence that ECDSA is about to be broken, and hastily moving funds carries significant risks.
However, if the cryptography underlying cryptocurrency wallets and blockchains were to fail, moving assets might be only the easiest part of the industry’s response.