Buterin rejects claim AI could halve Bitcoin price

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin rejected a prediction on X on September 7, 2026 that artificial intelligence could cut Bitcoin’s price by more than half within two years. The exchange followed a post by an AI risk commentator who set the probability at 50 percent.

Liron Shapira, host of the Doom Debates podcast, posted a prediction assigning 50% confidence to a fall of more than 50% in Bitcoin prices over two years. Shapira framed the risk as a security issue and did not specify which part of Bitcoin’s security model he expected AI to weaken.

Buterin responded on the same thread, writing ‘I take the opposite side of that.’ He wrote he is ‘quite optimistic about cybersecurity in the long term’ and described the main challenge as managing the transition to new defenses rather than an immediate failure of cryptographic guarantees. He added he expects Bitcoin to handle problems that do not require social consensus, citing client upgrades and mining-pool protections against network-layer attacks, and placed the odds of a break in hashing or proof-of-work close to zero.

Buterin declined to formalize the disagreement as a wager, noting his financial position already reflects his view: ‘I would offer a bet, but given what my holdings are I’m basically taking this bet … with ~90% of my net worth already.’

At the time of the exchange, Bitcoin traded near $79,827; a decline of more than 50% would move the price toward roughly $40,000.

Analysts and security researchers this year have debated whether more capable AI tools could automate cyberattacks, find cryptographic weaknesses, or speed the discovery of vulnerabilities in widely used software and hardware. Shapira’s scenario depends on AI weakening the technical or operational safeguards that protect blockchain networks.

Ethereum’s community has spent much of 2026 preparing for risks from advanced computing, including work on post-quantum migration strategies. Researchers are estimating the potential costs of moving cryptographic systems to post-quantum algorithms.

Under the timetable Shapira set, he has two years to demonstrate a decline greater than 50%. Buterin’s holdings are already positioned against that outcome.