Cory Klippsten, founder and chief executive of Swan Bitcoin, said artificial intelligence poses a more immediate threat to Bitcoin’s security than quantum computing. He made the comments during an interview on Cointelegraph’s Chain Reaction.

Klippsten said hackers are using large language models to probe cryptocurrency systems for vulnerabilities. In his view, attackers can identify security flaws with only a few prompts and use the tools to examine systems extensively.

“I think we’re finding out that the near term threat is actually AI,” Klippsten said. He described hackers using the technology to go “poking through everything.” He added that the pattern continues to appear repeatedly.

The distinction matters because Bitcoin’s security rests on two layers: the cryptography securing the network itself and the operational safeguards at the exchanges and custodians holding customer funds. In Klippsten’s account, AI-assisted attacks are already testing the second layer, while machines capable of threatening the first remain, by his estimate, a decade or more away.

His comments came as cryptocurrency exchanges dealt with a series of security incidents.

Recent exchange breaches

Brazilian exchange Mercado Bitcoin suspended deposits and withdrawals on Monday, Nov. 2, after a security incident. Researchers estimated that more than $46 million had left wallets connected to the exchange. The exchange’s incident was also reported by CoinCentral.

Days earlier, Binance lost $6.3 billion in a hack dated Oct. 29. The Federal Bureau of Investigation attributed that attack to North Korean hackers.

The FBI attribution fits a pattern U.S. authorities have documented for years, having linked North Korean hacking units to some of the largest cryptocurrency thefts on record. Centralized exchanges, which hold custody of user funds, have historically been among the sector’s most frequent hacking targets.

No group has yet been linked to the Mercado Bitcoin incident. The loss figures for both events are estimates reported in connection with the respective incidents. Klippsten did not associate either breach with a specific artificial intelligence tool, but cited them as examples of the broader security problem he described.

Researchers’ estimate of more than $46 million in outflows from Mercado Bitcoin remained the latest figure reported in the source material.

Quantum computing timeline

Klippsten characterized much of the concern about quantum computing as speculative. He estimated that quantum computers capable of threatening Bitcoin’s cryptography are at least a decade away, and said the timeline could be longer.

The timeline matters for Bitcoin’s design: the network relies on elliptic curve signatures, a class of public-key cryptography researchers have long flagged as vulnerable in principle to sufficiently advanced quantum machines. Standards work is already under way elsewhere — the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology finalized its first set of post-quantum cryptography standards in 2024.

He said the Bitcoin network could adopt quantum-resistant protections if the threat became credible. In his view, implementing those measures prematurely would create unnecessary complexity. Any such shift would need broad consensus among developers, miners and users through Bitcoin’s open proposal process — a path that has historically taken years from proposal to activation.

Klippsten also discussed how cryptocurrency companies should approach security. He said firms cannot depend on hastily developed software to protect customer assets.

“You need to actually know what the hell you’re doing from a security standpoint,” he said.

He further said that some cryptocurrency startups and investors have used fears about quantum computing to attract funding. He described much of that discussion as fear, uncertainty and doubt, commonly referred to as “FUD.” In his view, quantum computing is not an imminent security concern.

Klippsten made the remarks in the same Cointelegraph interview. The original report was published by CoinCentral.