Artificial intelligence is emerging as a new focus of attacks on Bitcoin's second-layer scaling solutions, driven by a surge in code complexity. Although the mainnet is designed to be minimalistic, the smart contracts and off-chain scaling layers introduced to enhance functionality have actually created more potential vulnerabilities, exposing infrastructure to unprecedented security challenges.
A series of recent massive loss events has highlighted this risk. The Coldcard wallet suffered a theft of approximately $114 million in Bitcoin; Core Lightning developers issued an urgent warning after AI-generated reports revealed real vulnerabilities. More notably, white-hat hackers drained about 4,000 Bitcoin (worth $317 million) by exploiting a flaw in Blockstream's Liquid network, then returned 3,400 Bitcoin after the bug was patched. These incidents demonstrate that as the Bitcoin ecosystem evolves toward greater complexity, the attack surface is expanding significantly.
Data compiled by Woofun AI shows that AI efficiency in vulnerability scanning has grown exponentially. In August, a team of 16 Bitcoin developers used AI models to scan 390 Bitcoin projects, uncovering nearly 5,000 issues, 85 of which were preliminarily rated as severe. This data confirms that artificial intelligence can discover deep-seated vulnerabilities that humans struggle to detect at extremely low cost, fundamentally transforming the traditional security audit model.
Gregory warned on Telegram that AI has fundamentally altered the security landscape of legacy financial software. The expert, who previously worked at Merrill Lynch and JPMorgan (JPM.US) before founding CommerceBlock and serving as CEO, has also been involved in developing the MainStay protocol alongside Mercury Wallet and the Mercury Layer state chains. He pointed out that if AI can wake up vulnerabilities in 2006-era code, it can also read the unmodified open-source Mercury Layer code on GitHub. As the cost of reading code drops to zero, risks associated with old code involving key deletion, client-side transaction verification, backup transactions, and lock-time mechanisms will be reactivated, marking the arrival of a new era of zero-cost auditing in financial software security.
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