AI or deciphering cryptographic math? Top experts warn that public key systems are at risk of collapse

According to Woofun AI, artificial intelligence's potential breakthroughs in mathematics are causing deep anxiety in the top cryptography community about the roots of public-key cryptography technology. Johns Hopkins University cryptographer Matthew Greene issued a stern warning, arguing that the latest developments in OpenAI may cause the core security mechanisms that protect the internet and cryptocurrencies to fail. Although there is currently no definitive evidence that encryption technology has been broken through, this theoretical risk has forced the industry to re-examine its security assumptions.

This concern stems from OpenAI's amazing ability revealed on October 6: an undisclosed artificial intelligence model has generated 722 mathematical research reports, covered 372 sets of findings, and attempted to solve some 4,000 long-standing scientific problems.

Data compiled by Woofun AI shows that although these results are still being evaluated, their demonstrated pattern recognition ability has alarmed experts. Bitcoin and Ethereum currently rely on elliptic curve cryptography to ensure transaction security. The core of this technology is that it is almost computationally impractical to reverse the private key from the public key.

However, if AI can discover mathematical shortcuts undetected by humans for decades, attackers may directly obtain private keys, causing Bitcoin wallets that have leaked public keys and Ethereum accounts that have been digitally signed to face the risk of funds being stolen. The deeper hidden danger lies in the blurring of security boundaries. Greene pointed out that a system originally thought to have a 128-bit security level may actually only have 96-bit or 108-bit security, and only a 20-bit security reduction can reduce attack costs by about 1 million times.

Furthermore, the post-quantum standards ML-KEM and ML-DSA, approved by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology in 2024, which rely on lattice-derived mathematical algorithms, may also become targets of AI attacks, forcing the industry to re-evaluate the effectiveness of existing protective measures.

Faced with this potential threat, vastly different technological response paths have emerged within the industry. Blockstream CEO Adam Beck bluntly stated that such warnings were 'unfounded, 'and demonstrated the SHRINCS hash signature system developed by his team based on the SHA-256 algorithm. The system has been verified on Bitcoin's Liquid sidechain, and its minimum signature length is only 324 bytes, which is extremely efficient.

However, hash signature technology is not a universal key; it cannot directly replace public key encryption and key exchange functions, and to be promoted on the Bitcoin main network, it still needs to go through a complicated protocol upgrade process. The limitations of this technology alternative make strategies that simply rely on algorithm upgrades to defend against AI threats seem overstretched, especially when AI may simultaneously weaken multiple mathematical foundations, and a single technical line of defense can easily be broken through.

Market participants have taken the lead, with Charles Edwards, founder of Capriole Investments and a member of the BeInCrypto Market Intelligence Expert Committee, saying he has stopped using DeFi services and drastically reduced the number of wallets and accounts to avoid potential systemic risks. He warned that if mainstream encryption technology is disrupted by AI, it will cause market chaos.

Currently, there are no publicly proven AI attacks that can break the core mechanisms of Bitcoin or Ethereum, but the real crisis lies in the speed with which the industry responds. If AI finally finds a way to crack digital signatures, online banking services, and secure internet communication, whether the entire Web3 ecosystem can fully upgrade its security system before a disaster occurs will be the ultimate test that will determine its life and death.