Ethereum Researcher Warns AI Could Crack Crypto Wallets, Here Are 4 Steps to Secure Coins
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- Justin Drake, peneliti Ethereum, mengungkap empat langkah mitigasi jika AI berhasil menembus keamanan dompet kripto.
- Langkah paling krusial adalah memindahkan dana ke alamat baru yang belum pernah mengirim transaksi, sehingga kunci publik tetap tersembunyi.
- Meski belum ada riset yang membuktikan kriptografi Bitcoin atau Ethereum jebol, sekitar 6,04 juta BTC sudah terekspos di alamat dengan kunci publik terlihat.
Ethereum researcher Justin Drake on Wednesday (19/3) laid out concrete steps for digital coin holders to secure their assets if artificial intelligence (AI) becomes capable of breaking crypto wallet security. The main step: move funds to an address that has never sent a transaction.
According to Drake, this method does not require new software or a new wallet. However, he warned that the worst-case scenario could unfold within months, while stressing that a rushed migration of funds could actually cause greater losses.
Drake recommended four steps, starting with the largest and most experienced coin holders. First, move most of the funds to an address that has never been used. An address that has never sent coins will keep its owner's private key hidden. Once coins leave an address, the remainder must be moved to a new address. This new address can come from the same seed phrase, the list of backup words used to restore a wallet.
Drake called this step simple and preventive, not an emergency measure. He also highlighted that wallets with balances below 50 Bitcoin (BTC) have partial protection from roughly 20,000 exposed early addresses, each holding 50 BTC.
"Don't rush. While I believe there is reason to act, a rushed migration will do more harm than good," Drake said.
Every crypto wallet has a private key—a secret code to approve payments—and a matching public key. An address that has never been used only shows a scrambled fingerprint of the public key, called a hash. The full key only appears on the blockchain, crypto's public ledger, when the first transaction is made.
Drake worries AI could help attackers trace back from a visible public key to the private key. He pointed to OpenAI's launch this week, which released 722 math papers written by AI. However, none of the results Drake cited relate to wallet mathematics. No published research has shown that Bitcoin or Ethereum (ETH) cryptography has been broken.
Although there is no evidence that cryptography has been broken, Glassnode data shows about 6.04 million BTC is already exposed at addresses with visible public keys. BeInCrypto cited that figure in its coverage of Europol's quantum wallet warning.
Drake stressed that these steps are not a panic response but long-term anticipation. He also pushed for faster adoption of SHA- or BLAKE-based hash security standards on Ethereum to strengthen defenses against potential future AI attacks.
For Indonesian investors, this warning is relevant as crypto asset adoption grows in the country. Although there is no indication of AI attacks on local wallets, awareness of cyber security risks is crucial, especially for those holding large amounts of coins in hot wallets.
Going forward, the question is: will the crypto industry be able to adapt quickly before AI truly becomes a real threat? Or will we witness an arms race between attackers and developers that determines the fate of billions of dollars in digital assets?
