AI Sweeps Bitcoin L2: The Complexity Paradox Behind the $114 Million Theft

According to Woofun AI, Bitcoin's second-layer scaling scheme is becoming a new focus of artificial intelligence attacks due to a surge in code complexity. Despite the minimal design of the main network, smart contracts and off-chain extension layers introduced to improve functionality have instead introduced more potential vulnerabilities, making the infrastructure face unprecedented security challenges.

A series of recent incidents of huge losses have highlighted this risk. The Coldcard wallet suffered an estimated $114 million in bitcoin theft; Core Lightning developers issued an urgent warning after AI-generated reports revealed the real vulnerability. More prominently, white hat hackers took advantage of Blockstream's Liquid network bug to take around 4,000 bitcoins (worth $317 million) and returned 3,400 bitcoins after fixing the bug. These events suggest that as the Bitcoin ecosystem evolves towards complexity, the attack surface is expanding significantly.

Data compiled by Woofun AI shows that AI's efficiency in vulnerability scanning has increased exponentially. In August, a team of 16 Bitcoin developers scanned 390 Bitcoin projects using an AI model and discovered nearly 5,000 issues, 85 of which were initially rated as critical.

This data confirms that artificial intelligence can find deep vulnerabilities that are difficult for humans to detect at a very low cost, completely changing the traditional security audit model.

Gregory warned on Telegram that AI has fundamentally changed the security landscape of old financial software. The expert, who worked for Merrill Lynch and JPMorgan Chase (JPM.US) and later founded CommerceBlock as CEO, also participated in the development of the MainStay agreement and Mercury Wallet and Mercury Layer state chains. He pointed out that if AI can awaken the bugs in the 2006 code, it can also read the unmodified Mercury Layer open source code on GitHub. As code reading costs are reduced to zero, old code risks involving key deletion, client transfer verification, backup transactions, and lock-up time mechanisms will be reactivated, marking a new era of zero-cost auditing of financial software.