TLDR
Vitalik Buterin said AI-driven math advances could weaken lattice-based cryptography within two years.
He said even schemes seen as quantum-resistant, such as ML-DSA and FHE, may face risks.
Ethereum’s lean roadmap is moving toward hash-based signatures like WOTS and SPHINCS.
He advised fresh addresses, off-chain multisig confirmations, and larger parameters for lattice encryption.
The Ethereum Foundation aims to make its main network fully quantum-resistant by 2029.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has warned that artificial intelligence could weaken key parts of crypto security within two years. He shared the warning in a post on X on October 8.
Buterin said AI-driven advances in mathematics could hurt lattice-based cryptography. This includes some systems that many experts consider safe from quantum computers.
He urged the crypto industry to take the risk seriously. He said projects should reduce their exposure to both quantum-vulnerable and AI-vulnerable cryptography.
I don't recommend anyone scramble to move their funds to new wallets today. But we should take the risks to cryptography from AI-accelerated math seriously, and minimize our exposure to not just quantum-vulnerable cryptography, but also potentially AI-vulnerable cryptography.…
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) October 7, 2026
Buterin Questions Common Security Assumptions
Buterin said the risk goes beyond older schemes like ECDSA, which is already seen as vulnerable to quantum attacks. He said lattice-based methods such as ML-DSA and FHE could also be at risk.
He challenged a common belief in the industry. That belief holds that elliptic curves are broken while hashes and lattices remain safe.
Buterin said there is a “good chance” that the real-world security of lattices will take serious hits from the next two years of AI math progress.
He pointed to RSA as an example. He said RSA keys and signatures need to be nearly 400 bytes rather than 64 bytes.
“What if there are skeletons in the closet like that, both for elliptic curves and lattices, that we are simply not smart enough to discover but bots soon will be?” he wrote.
He added that if AI brings “50 years of math in 2 years,” that progress could include a major jump in the ability to break lattices.
Ethereum Moves Toward Hash-Based Signatures
Buterin said Ethereum’s lean roadmap has focused on a “hash-only” direction rather than lattices. This includes signature types such as WOTS and SPHINCS.
He said hash-based methods do not have a mathematical structure that attackers can easily exploit. For that reason, they are seen as more resistant to AI-driven attacks.
Hash-only approaches already work for signatures and proofs, he noted. Public key encryption is harder, since long-standing math results show it cannot be built from hashes alone.
For multisig wallets, Buterin said the ideal rule is for each signer to change their key after every operation. He also said signatures should be gathered off-chain when possible to shorten the time a key stays exposed.
He advised users to use fresh addresses wherever possible. He also suggested avoiding on-chain encrypted notes for privacy and using larger parameters for any lattice-based public key encryption.
Other groups are also preparing for future threats. Europol has urged the crypto industry to start getting ready for quantum computing risks, warning that wallets are the main point of exposure.
The EU’s NIS Cooperation Group has called for adopting a post-quantum strategy by the end of 2026. The Ethereum Foundation is aiming to make Ethereum’s main network fully quantum-resistant by 2029.
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