#vitalik警告ai或将加速削弱密码学安全
6 million bitcoins are “running naked”—accounting for nearly one-third of the network’s circulating supply 🦖
👉 进群看盘面
On-chain research firm Glassnode has just updated a set of figures. Currently, more than 6 million bitcoins are sitting in on-chain addresses where the public keys are already publicly visible. That equals 31.2% of the network’s circulating supply—5 to 6 percentage points higher than the low point in 2023.
What’s even more alarming is the speed. From the report released in May this year to now, the amount of bitcoins exposed under publicly viewable public keys has increased by 220,000 coins. At current prices, that’s about $18.2 billion. In the same period, the network as a whole only mined an additional 64,000 bitcoins. The newly exposed amount is more than three times the newly produced supply. Of that, one exchange alone contributed 123,000 bitcoins—bringing the total it holds across publicly exposed keys to 1.79 million.
Putting these numbers in the spotlight is Ethereum researcher Justin Drake. On Wednesday, he publicly urged the industry to start preparing for “bunker mode”—the idea is to systematically move coins held by large holders to brand-new addresses whose public keys have never appeared on-chain. His most heavy-hitting line was: “In the worst case, AI might only need a few months—not years—to find shortcuts to cracking wallet cryptography.” That’s earlier than even quantum computers.
🔐 Interestingly, the exposure proportions vary wildly across players. One asset-management giant holds about 375,000 bitcoins, with an exposure rate of only 2%. One leading custodian has 10%. Meanwhile, an exchange and broker can directly reach 83%, 99%, or even 100%. By contrast, the holdings of the U.S. government, the U.K. government, and the Salvadoran government are, under this algorithm, exposed to nearly zero.
💡 My view: there’s really no need to panic in the short term. So far, there has been no confirmed real attack that targets Bitcoin or Ethereum wallet private keys. The truly dangerous part is that this isn’t just being stolen now—it’s being recorded now and worked out later. Once your public key is put on-chain, it stays there forever. Anyone can save it first, and then calculate it once computing power is enough.
The AI threat isn’t just theoretical. In December last year, Anthropic’s research showed that frontier models can already generate working attack code for real DeFi smart contracts. By late July, a volunteer team used AI to scan 390 Bitcoin-related projects in 27 hours and logged nearly 5,000 potential vulnerabilities—85 of which were rated as critical. On July 30, someone used a firmware vulnerability from five years ago to steal at least 1,367 bitcoins out of a hardware wallet. The manufacturer publicly said it suspects that AI helped identify the flaw.
So the key isn’t whether to move or not—it’s how to move. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik also reminded people that chaotic, large-scale migrations themselves could cause losses. The truly reasonable action is to perform orderly, “like a medical checkup” address refreshes for large holders—not collective relocations. Put it in words ordinary people can understand: what you need to figure out right now is where your coins are actually stored.
Are your coins kept on an exchange or in your own cold wallet? Have you thought about public key exposure? Let’s discuss in the comments ⚠️
Click the avatar to watch the livestream
Every day, I’ll guide you through Bitcoin and crypto security hotspots — not only what’s happening, but also help you understand the logic and opportunities behind it 👀🚀
6 million bitcoins are “running naked”—accounting for nearly one-third of the network’s circulating supply 🦖
👉 进群看盘面
On-chain research firm Glassnode has just updated a set of figures. Currently, more than 6 million bitcoins are sitting in on-chain addresses where the public keys are already publicly visible. That equals 31.2% of the network’s circulating supply—5 to 6 percentage points higher than the low point in 2023.
What’s even more alarming is the speed. From the report released in May this year to now, the amount of bitcoins exposed under publicly viewable public keys has increased by 220,000 coins. At current prices, that’s about $18.2 billion. In the same period, the network as a whole only mined an additional 64,000 bitcoins. The newly exposed amount is more than three times the newly produced supply. Of that, one exchange alone contributed 123,000 bitcoins—bringing the total it holds across publicly exposed keys to 1.79 million.
Putting these numbers in the spotlight is Ethereum researcher Justin Drake. On Wednesday, he publicly urged the industry to start preparing for “bunker mode”—the idea is to systematically move coins held by large holders to brand-new addresses whose public keys have never appeared on-chain. His most heavy-hitting line was: “In the worst case, AI might only need a few months—not years—to find shortcuts to cracking wallet cryptography.” That’s earlier than even quantum computers.
🔐 Interestingly, the exposure proportions vary wildly across players. One asset-management giant holds about 375,000 bitcoins, with an exposure rate of only 2%. One leading custodian has 10%. Meanwhile, an exchange and broker can directly reach 83%, 99%, or even 100%. By contrast, the holdings of the U.S. government, the U.K. government, and the Salvadoran government are, under this algorithm, exposed to nearly zero.
💡 My view: there’s really no need to panic in the short term. So far, there has been no confirmed real attack that targets Bitcoin or Ethereum wallet private keys. The truly dangerous part is that this isn’t just being stolen now—it’s being recorded now and worked out later. Once your public key is put on-chain, it stays there forever. Anyone can save it first, and then calculate it once computing power is enough.
The AI threat isn’t just theoretical. In December last year, Anthropic’s research showed that frontier models can already generate working attack code for real DeFi smart contracts. By late July, a volunteer team used AI to scan 390 Bitcoin-related projects in 27 hours and logged nearly 5,000 potential vulnerabilities—85 of which were rated as critical. On July 30, someone used a firmware vulnerability from five years ago to steal at least 1,367 bitcoins out of a hardware wallet. The manufacturer publicly said it suspects that AI helped identify the flaw.
So the key isn’t whether to move or not—it’s how to move. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik also reminded people that chaotic, large-scale migrations themselves could cause losses. The truly reasonable action is to perform orderly, “like a medical checkup” address refreshes for large holders—not collective relocations. Put it in words ordinary people can understand: what you need to figure out right now is where your coins are actually stored.
Are your coins kept on an exchange or in your own cold wallet? Have you thought about public key exposure? Let’s discuss in the comments ⚠️
Click the avatar to watch the livestream
Every day, I’ll guide you through Bitcoin and crypto security hotspots — not only what’s happening, but also help you understand the logic and opportunities behind it 👀🚀