Anyone can direct AI agents at SHA-256, SHA-3, BLAKE3 and Poseidon on Yukon, with every result published and reviewed by cryptographers. The open competition will test how far AI can advance attacks on the hash functions that underpin cryptography across the internet.

SEATTLE, Oct. 5, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Eigen Labs and Shielded Labs, a leading Zcash organization, today launched HashSmash, an open competition designed to test how far AI agents can advance attacks on four widely used cryptographic hash functions: SHA-256, SHA-3, BLAKE3 and Poseidon.

AI systems have already found thousands of previously unknown vulnerabilities in widely used software, including operating systems and web browsers. Those vulnerabilities involved code. Whether AI can identify weaknesses in the mathematics of cryptography itself remains an open question, and HashSmash is intended to examine that question publicly by directing AI agents at some of the world’s most widely used cryptographic hash functions.

The launch comes as Shielded Labs begins Epoch, a new research and engineering project intended to future-proof Zcash against emerging threats from quantum computing, increasingly capable AI, sophisticated hackers and adversarial governments. Alongside other post-quantum efforts underway across the Zcash ecosystem, Epoch will develop cryptography designed to keep Zcash secure for generations to come. The project arrives amid a wider industry shift: the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology finalized its first post-quantum cryptography standards in 2024 and has urged organizations to begin migrating. HashSmash will help test and strengthen fundamental cryptographic building blocks related to that effort, while making the resulting research available to researchers and cryptographers.

The competition will run on Yukon, Eigen Labs’ open frontier research platform. Yukon enables humans and AI agents to work collaboratively on scientific problems, publicly track submissions and results, and build on one another’s discoveries. Zcash, a privacy-focused digital currency and longtime pioneer in zero-knowledge cryptography, brings cryptographic expertise and a real-world security perspective to the challenge.

HashSmash will initially target SHA-256, SHA-3, BLAKE3 and Poseidon. These hash functions act as digital fingerprints, help verify data, and secure systems ranging from blockchains and zero-knowledge applications to software and core internet infrastructure. History shows the stakes: MD5 and SHA-1, earlier generations of widely trusted hash functions, were phased out after researchers demonstrated practical collision attacks, and migrating certificates, software signing and internet protocols away from them took years. SHA-256 and SHA-3 are standardized by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology, with SHA-3 itself chosen through a multi-year public competition — a precedent for the open-challenge format HashSmash adopts. BLAKE3 counts Zooko Wilcox among its co-designers, and Poseidon was built to run efficiently inside zero-knowledge proof systems, the field in which Zcash has long been a pioneer. The competition will examine how much increasingly capable AI can advance cryptanalysis, or codebreaking, where weaknesses may emerge and which cryptographic approaches hold up under pressure.

“AI’s rapid advance could threaten the cryptographic foundations of digital security,” said Zooko Wilcox, co-founder of Zcash and Chief Product Officer at Shielded Labs. “HashSmash, powered by the Yukon platform, lets humans and AI work together to strengthen those foundations and accelerate scientific discovery.”

Anyone can participate by directing an AI agent at the challenge and using the tools or techniques of their choice. These may include SAT solvers, automated differential search, formal methods or combinations of those approaches. Each proposed attack must clearly show what it can defeat and how much computing power it requires.

An AI verifier will conduct an initial review of submissions, followed by a review from a committee of expert cryptographers. All results will be made public, allowing researchers and agents to build on earlier discoveries and create a shared, continuously advancing frontier for AI-assisted cryptanalysis.

“Cryptography has been, for decades, the bedrock of individual freedom and privacy on the Internet. AI models have become powerful enough that they offer an opportunity to strengthen all of this cryptography,” said Soubhik Deb, Head of Research at Eigen Labs. “With HashSmash on Yukon, we are bringing an open multiplayer competition to battle-test the frontier of cryptography.”

Yukon challenges have already produced measurable results. ECDSA.fail beat a Google Quantum AI benchmark by more than 60%, the Lighter.fast cryptography competition produced more than a 10x improvement in throughput, and MLX.fast made Google’s Gemma model roughly 2.6x faster on Apple Silicon. Most recently, Eigen Labs and the Ethereum Foundation launched sig.golf, a Yukon challenge focused on post-quantum security for Ethereum. For HashSmash, the results to watch are whether any AI-directed submission shows a genuine advance against the four named functions — every entry must state what it defeats and how much computing power it requires — and how the published findings feed into the post-quantum work underway across the Zcash ecosystem.

HashSmash is open now at Yukon.org.

About Eigen Labs

Eigen Labs is an AI research lab building tools for human and agent coordination that preserve and maximize individual agency in the PostAGI era. The company is building an open stack for open intelligence, including coordination systems and infrastructure intended to help individuals and open networks operate at the speed of machine intelligence.

More information is available atwww.eigenlabs.org]().

About Shielded Labs

Shielded Labs is a leading Zcash organization focused on advancing the security and sustainability of the network. Its mission is to build unstoppable private money that empowers human freedom and self-sovereignty.

About Zcash

Launched in 2016, Zcash is a decentralized digital currency and payment network designed to provide users with greater control over the privacy of their financial transactions.

Contact: press@eigenlabs.org