Cybersecurity in the crypto industry is reaching a new milestone. More than forty companies specializing in Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies have submitted a formal request to the world’s leading artificial intelligence laboratories.

Their goal: to secure early access to the most advanced AI models — before they are publicly deployed — so that independent security researchers can use them to detect and neutralize cyber threats targeting the crypto ecosystem.

This initiative reveals the scale of the risks facing players across the sector, and the race against the clock that has begun to address them.

Why the Bitcoin Industry Is Sounding the Alarm on Cybersecurity

Cyberattacks against crypto platforms show no signs of slowing down. In 2024, losses from hacks and exploits exceeded $2.2 billion according to data from CertiK — a figure that places cybersecurity at the very top of the sector’s priorities. Attack vectors continue to multiply: vulnerable smart contracts, sophisticated phishing campaigns, private key compromises, and attacks targeting cross-chain bridges.

Faced with this reality, the companies that signed the open letter to AI labs — including major players in Bitcoin infrastructure — believe that the latest generation of artificial intelligence tools represents an unprecedented opportunity to strengthen protocol defenses. These models are capable of analyzing millions of lines of code in seconds, identifying previously unseen attack patterns, and simulating exploitation scenarios before they occur in real-world conditions.

The problem is that the most powerful versions of these AI systems are not yet publicly available. Independent security researchers — who often serve as the ecosystem’s first line of defense — therefore have no access to them. That is precisely the barrier the crypto industry is now pushing to break down.

Pre-Deployment Access: The Concrete Demand from Crypto Firms to AI Giants

The request is specific: grant independent security researchers access to the most powerful AI models within a controlled environment, before those models go live to the public. This pre-deployment window would make it possible to test the offensive and defensive capabilities of these models in a crypto context — including smart contract audits, on-chain anomaly detection, and simulated attacks on DeFi protocols and wallets.

The approach follows the logic of red teaming applied to blockchain: using the same tools as potential attackers in order to anticipate their moves. AI labs such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google DeepMind do run security researcher partnership programs, but access remains limited and is rarely tailored to the specific requirements of crypto infrastructure.

This collective initiative marks a turning point in how the Bitcoin industry thinks about its own resilience. Rather than reacting after each incident, the companies behind the letter are advocating for a proactive approach built around collaboration between the crypto ecosystem and AI developers. It is a strong signal that could accelerate the emergence of security standards shared across the entire sector.

AI and Crypto: A Strategic Alliance Still Largely Untapped

The intersection of artificial intelligence and blockchain security remains largely underdeveloped despite its obvious potential. A handful of pioneering projects — such as automated code auditing tools and on-chain anomaly detection systems — have already demonstrated that AI can identify vulnerabilities that human auditors miss. But these solutions remain fragmented and are rarely accessible to independent security teams.

The demand from the forty Bitcoin companies sits within a broader context: the technological arms race between hackers and defenders. Malicious actors — including state-sponsored groups such as the Lazarus Group, responsible for several billion dollars in crypto theft — are already using automated tools to identify and exploit vulnerabilities. Failing to respond with equivalent capabilities means fighting with one hand tied behind your back.

If AI labs respond favorably to this request, it could open the door to a new security paradigm for the crypto industry: AI-assisted continuous auditing, early warning systems for DeFi protocols, and a significantly faster incident response capability. Should this effort succeed, it would permanently shift the balance of power between attackers and defenders across the entire blockchain ecosystem.