Buterin Opposes AI-Driven Crash Prediction for Bitcoin

Vitalik Buterin has rejected a forecast that artificial intelligence could cut Bitcoin's price by more than half within two years. The Ethereum co-founder said his existing crypto holdings already place roughly 90% of his net worth on the opposite side of that view.

Bitcoin is currently trading at just under $80,000 after reaching a three-month high of $82,500 on September 3. Using a price near $80,000 as a reference point, a 50% decline would place Bitcoin at $40,000.

Liron Shapira, a Silicon Valley investor and host of the Doom Debates podcast, said he had 50% confidence that Bitcoin would lose more than half its value within two years because AI could undermine the security or robustness guarantees that investors expect from the network.

Shapira's concern is that faster AI could eventually create new attacks against the technology protecting Bitcoin. Buterin responded that he takes the opposite side of Shapira's forecast, saying he is optimistic about cybersecurity in the long term and expects Bitcoin to handle issues that do not require a broad social consensus.

Buterin explained that network-level issues can be addressed without breaking Bitcoin's underlying cryptography. He noted that developers, node operators, and mining pools could upgrade clients or infrastructure to address some network-level attacks.