AI-Powered Hackers Force Boltz to Suspend Bitcoin Bridge Services

Boltz, a Bitcoin bridge, has suspended its services indefinitely due to repeated attacks on its infrastructure by hackers using AI tools. The company claimed that over the past few months it had witnessed a 'steady rise in automated, AI-assisted probing of our infrastructure' that resulted in several exploits.

According to Boltz, every exploit was contained, but the team is now worried that they can't keep up with fixing exploits as their attackers 'iterate faster than a team our size can find and patch.'

The suspension has had a knock-on effect on other Bitcoin firms, including Bull Bitcoin and Aqua Wallet. Bull Bitcoin warned that lightning payments and Liquid to Bitcoin swaps in its wallet will now 'fail without explanation,' while Aqua Wallet said it's working with Boltz to find alternative means for lightning swaps.

Boltz stressed that no user funds were ever at risk, as the company operated a non-custodial bridge that used hashed timelock contracts to execute atomic swaps between regular BTC, Lightning Network BTC, and Liquid Network BTC. Funds either fully swapped or fully reverted within one block.