Researcher Calls for Crypto Industry to Enter 'Bunker Mode' to Protect Against AI and Quantum Attacks

Justin Drake, a researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, made a call on his social media this Wednesday (7), urging the cryptocurrency industry to start preparing to enter a "bunker mode," meaning taking additional security measures.

In the text, the security expert states that "the last few days have been a humbling shock to our mathematical intuition." As an example, he cites the recent disclosure by OpenAI regarding the production of hundreds of complex mathematical results.

Another topic addressed by Drake is the advancement of quantum computing, a subject on which even Europol published a report also this Wednesday (7).

Bitcoin's Algorithm Could Be Broken Sooner Than Expected Due to AI Advances, Says Researcher

Starting his text, Justin Drake asserts that investors and companies in the sector should not rush to act, as this would cause more harm than good, but that everyone should begin to prepare.

"Today, I call upon the blockchain industry to calmly begin planning for 'bunker mode'. My personal recommendation is to set in motion a controlled mass migration of assets to fresh addresses, i.e., addresses whose pubkeys remain hidden behind a hash."

Following, the researcher mentions the possibility that ECDSA (English acronym for Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm) could be broken before the so-called "qday," a term used to describe the moment when quantum computers would be powerful enough to break this algorithm used by Bitcoin.

In the worst-case scenario, Drake states that this could happen "in months, not years".

"The last few days have been a humbling shock to our mathematical intuition. Long-held hypotheses that were never questioned have fallen apart. This includes the n log(n) limit for integer multiplication and the 3SUM conjecture. Looking back, the unexpected refutation of Erdős's conjecture on unit distances in May was our first warning sign. OpenAI's announcement yesterday made it clear that mathematical superintelligence has arrived. They say there are weeks when decades happen. We are about to live through weeks in which centuries of mathematical progress will occur. Are our magical 64-byte ECDSA signatures too good to be true? Has it just been security through obscurity all this time? Elliptic curves seem especially vulnerable to superintelligence. The curves carry a rich structure, with room for sophisticated tricks like Schoof, Frobenius, and pairings. (In contrast, hash functions are designed to minimize algebraic structure.)" Today I call upon the blockchain industry to calmly begin planning for "bunker mode". My personal recommendation is to set in motion a controlled mass migration of assets to fresh addresses, i.e., addresses whose pubkeys remain hidden behind a hash.

Holders, starting with large...
--- Justin Drake (@drakefjustin) October 7, 2026

Another point mentioned in his text is his personal experience regarding governments censoring academic results of quantum cryptanalysis.

His hypothesis is that a new intervention may be happening behind the scenes, as there are few cryptographic advances among the 722 mathematical results published by OpenAI.

In other words, Drake considers it possible that there are cryptographic advances that are not among the disclosed results.

Wallets with Less Than 50 Bitcoins Have "Partial Protection," Explains Drake

At the beginning of his text, Justin Drake states that this migration to "bunker mode" should start with the largest and most sophisticated holders of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in the market.

In summary, Bitcoin addresses expose their public key when signing a transaction, weakening their security against quantum attacks. Although this is not a concern today, it could be exploited by powerful quantum computers in the future or, as Drake suggests, by advanced AIs before that.

As an example, a study published in May by Glassnode revealed that many of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the market face this risk.

"I urge large and sophisticated market participants to lead by example. The 'risq list' from Project11 is an excellent tracker of exposed BTC public keys. Binance, Bitbank, Robinhood, Bitfinex, and Tether have the opportunity to strengthen their cold custody. Next month, I will speak with institutions in London in a live Q&A session," wrote Drake.

Continuing, the researcher points out that wallets with less than 50 bitcoins would be protected initially. This is because Satoshi Nakamoto supposedly mined about 1.1 million bitcoins to P2PK addresses (whose public key is exposed even without making outgoing transactions).

Therefore, it is natural to imagine that these attacks, if they happen, would start with these addresses, which would be noticeable to the entire market.

"Again, please do not rush. Wallets with less than 50 BTC have a partial protection from the 'Satoshi shield', meaning their 20,000 exposed addresses each hold 50 BTC. Critical signers, such as oracles and security councils of L2s, should consider rotating ECDSA public keys with each signed message and/or using multiple signatures with hash-based schemes, such as SPHINCS."

Finally, Drake suggests the use of "post-AI cryptography," meaning betting on hash-based cryptographic solutions, completely avoiding structured mathematical assumptions.

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