Crypto firms urge AI labs to grant Bitcoin devs early access

A coalition of cryptocurrency companies on Monday urged frontier artificial intelligence labs to give Bitcoin developers early access to their most capable models. The appeal was published by the Bitcoin Policy Institute and requested trusted access so maintainers can use advanced tools to protect open-source financial software.

The letter wrote that many digital-asset defenders, including Bitcoin Core developers, are blocked by guardrails on public frontier systems or must rely on less capable open-weight models. It added that open-source code supports critical digital and financial systems and that a vulnerability could put user savings at risk; the letter noted Bitcoin secures more than $1 trillion in value.

Signatories requested that frontier AI labs “establish or expand standing trusted-access programs for qualified defenders of open-source financial infrastructure.” The open letter listed co-signers including the African Bitcoin Institute, Anchorage Digital, BitGo, Bitwise, Blockstream, Bull Bitcoin, MARA, Kraken, Ledger and Trezor.

The letter warned that without such access programs, defenders may lack the tools to respond quickly to evolving threats. BPI reported maintainers described instances of advanced actors, including potential foreign adversaries, using powerful AI to sustain attacks on code and systems.

Industry tracking data showed malicious actors stole more than $634 million from cryptocurrency platforms in April 2026, a monthly high. BPI cited that figure and prior industry losses of roughly $1.4 billion in February 2025 to note frontier AI is changing the economics of security research and cyber operations.

The letter stated advanced models can search large codebases, flag potential weaknesses and speed up complex technical work for both defenders and attackers. New systems such as Claude Opus 4.8 and ChatGPT 5.5 have been linked to faster vulnerability discovery. Mitchell Amador, chief executive of bug-bounty platform Immunefi, described the trend as a “vulnerability apocalypse” for the crypto sector.

BPI urged labs to set up verification and onboarding processes so qualified maintainers can use advanced models to find and fix vulnerabilities before bad actors exploit them. The letter did not name specific AI firms and addressed frontier labs generally, framing the request as protection for open-source financial infrastructure and systems that hold large amounts of value.