Bitcoin Red Team Founder Crippled by Sudden OpenAI Tool Restriction

A Bitcoin security researcher has reportedly lost access to OpenAI's Trust & Cyber tooling while working on ongoing red-team scans. Rob Hamilton, CEO of AnchorWatch and founder of the Bitcoin Red Team, said he began integrating OpenAI's Trust & Cyber capabilities into his efforts on Saturday but was restricted from continuing the investigation after access was restricted the next day.

According to Hamilton, this change affected not only the ability to evaluate existing code changes but also to check whether additional issues remained undiscovered. He argued that 'intelligence is unrestricted' for actors who pursue harm, while defenders conducting 'harm reduction' are left without comparable tooling.

The incident highlights a broader worry shared by parts of the crypto defense community: that the most capable AI systems may not be readily available to those trying to harden public code against cyber threats. Hamilton has switched back to using Chinese open-source models for vulnerability research, citing it as a practical necessity rather than a preferred approach.

The Bitcoin Red Team's approach combines AI-assisted scanning with human review across hundreds of open-source repositories. The researchers aim to identify vulnerabilities in the code and provide solutions before they can be exploited by malicious actors.