Foresight News message: On August 10, Bitcoin policy institutions, together with organizations from the digital assets, cybersecurity, and open-source communities, issued a public letter (Defenders Need the Frontier). The letter calls on laboratories and researchers working on frontier AI systems to provide trusted, early access to qualified open-source financial infrastructure (including the Bitcoin network and related digital-asset systems) defenders. The letter states that frontier AI is changing the landscape of security research and cyber offense/defense, accelerating vulnerability discovery; however, qualified open-source defenders often lack sustained access to the strongest models, while attackers may already have an advantage. The letter asks laboratories to establish or expand trusted access programs, offering pre-release models, sufficient compute, secure environments, and coordinated disclosure channels, so defenders can take the lead in strengthening open-source financial infrastructure.

The signatories to the open letter also include institutions such as Strategy, Bitwise, Ledger, Galaxy, MARA, Blockstream, Trezor, Strike, River, and Kraken.