Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has warned that rapid advances in artificial intelligence could weaken the mathematics protecting cryptocurrency wallets sooner than previously expected — while urging holders to avoid rushed transfers that could put their own funds at risk.

His comments followed a Wednesday warning from Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake, who said faster mathematical discoveries could threaten widely used wallet security systems before powerful quantum computers arrive. In a follow-up post on X on October 8, 2026, Buterin laid out what he considers the ideal "safe" practice for multisignature wallets:

Correction: for multisigs the ideal "safe" rule is that you want each signer to change their key after each operation. (This is making an implicit assumption that ECDSA might become weak, but not to the point where any crack of it would be literally instant so you would…

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) October 8, 2026

Multisignature wallets require approvals from multiple independent keys before funds can move, so the strength of each signer's key feeds directly into the wallet's overall safety. The exchange highlights differing emphases among Ethereum researchers: Drake focused on preparing for a potential cryptographic breakthrough, while Buterin stressed that careless reactions could themselves result in losses.

Researchers Raise Concerns Over Wallet Signatures

Drake called on the industry to prepare for what he described as "bunker mode." He said artificial intelligence might help researchers break ECDSA — the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm — which Bitcoin and Ethereum rely on to approve transactions. In these systems, public keys help verify payments, while private keys allow owners to spend their funds.

Under Drake's worst-case scenario, such a breakthrough could occur within months. He advised careful transfers to unused addresses with hidden public keys. That detail matters because a public key generally becomes visible on-chain once an address signs its first transaction, leaving addresses that have never signed with their keys still unrevealed. The warnings come against the backdrop of a recent Ethereum wallet module exploit, which showed how security failures can expose user funds.

Buterin Warns Against Rushed Transfers

Buterin agreed that the mathematical risks deserve attention but pushed back against urgent, sweeping wallet migrations. He said holders could use addresses that have never signed a transaction when switching requires relatively little effort.

The Ethereum co-founder added that past migration mistakes had cost him more money than hacks, underscoring that his warning centered on errors during transfers or upgrades rather than any confirmed breakthrough against existing wallet signatures.

AI Advances Raise Questions About Other Defenses

The debate followed OpenAI's release of hundreds of mathematical manuscripts produced by an internal model — a development Drake pointed to as a reason to review existing security plans. Separately, Ethereum's private AI payment tool recently launched to help users make payments without revealing their identities.

Buterin also raised questions about whether lattice-based systems would remain as strong as expected. Such systems support tools including ML-DSA — a lattice scheme standardized by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology for post-quantum use — and depend on mathematical problems that researchers consider difficult to solve. That matters because lattice schemes anchor many post-quantum migration plans across the industry.

Developers Face Calls for Careful Planning

In his remarks, Buterin recommended stronger safety margins for lattice-based systems and greater use of hash-based methods where practical; hash-based signatures are often treated as the most conservative fallback because their security rests on hash functions alone. He also favored keeping encrypted privacy data off public blockchains. A separate MetaMask staking security incident recently highlighted the operational challenges facing Ethereum-related services.

He paired the technical guidance with a message to users, saying careful wallet upgrades should take priority over speed.

Neither researcher claimed that attackers have broken ECDSA. Their warnings focused on the need to plan ahead while avoiding hasty moves that could lead to immediate losses. Buterin urged holders to review their security steps carefully rather than act under pressure. For observers, the signals worth following are concrete: peer-reviewed cryptanalytic results, further guidance from Ethereum researchers, and whether ECDSA remains intact in practice.

Source: CoinCentral