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Vitalik Buterin has rejected a forecast that artificial intelligence could cut Bitcoin price by more than half within two years. The Ethereum co-founder said his existing crypto holdings already place roughly 90% of his net worth on the opposite side of that view.
Bitcoin is at just under $80,000 after reaching a three-month high of $82,500 on September 3. Using a price near $80,000 as a reference point, a 50% decline would place Bitcoin at $40,000.
Shapira, a Silicon Valley investor and host of the Doom Debates podcast, said he had 50% confidence that Bitcoin would lose more than half its value within two years because AI could undermine the security or robustness guarantees that investors expect from the network.
His concern is that faster AI could eventually create new attacks against the technology protecting Bitcoin. The wording of Shapira’s claim focuses on the security guarantees people expect from Bitcoin, while the report describes the possible impact of AI on those assumptions.
For the crypto market, the debate separates concerns about Bitcoin’s technical foundations from concerns about how participants could react to a perceived threat. A discussion of AI-related risks does not by itself establish that Bitcoin’s cryptography has been broken, but it has placed attention on the network’s ability to address new security challenges.
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Buterin’s Reply and The Size of The Bet
Buterin responded that he takes the opposite side of Shapira’s forecast. He said he is optimistic about cybersecurity in the long term and expects Bitcoin to handle issues that do not require a broad social consensus.
His explanation distinguished between network-level issues and a genuine break of Bitcoin’s underlying cryptography. Developers, node operators, and mining pools could upgrade clients or infrastructure to address some network-level attacks. Buterin described the probability of actual breaks in Bitcoin’s hash algorithms or proof-of-work as tiny.
Buterin also said he would offer a bet, but that his existing holdings already amount to taking this position with about 90% of his net worth. He noted that the same question could apply to Ethereum, reflecting the relevance of cryptographic assumptions across crypto networks.
In a separate discussion, Buterin pointed to advances in succinct proofs and fully homomorphic encryption in 2026. The same report said Ethereum’s roadmap overhaul on August 10 elevated quantum safety as a priority.
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Three competing AI vs. Bitcoin theses
Shapira is not the only figure to link AI with potential pressure on Bitcoin. BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes has warned that AI-driven credit stress could prompt a market sell-off and push Bitcoin below $60,000. Bitcoin critic Peter Schiff has argued that AI could compete with Bitcoin for investment capital, electricity, and data-center resources.
| Source | Thesis | Mechanism described |
|---|---|---|
| Liron Shapira | A Bitcoin decline of more than 50% within two years | AI could undermine expected security or robustness guarantees |
| Vitalik Buterin | Rejects the crash forecast | Many network-level issues can be addressed, while a hash or proof-of-work break is unlikely |
| Arthur Hayes | AI-related credit stress could pressure Bitcoin | A broader market sell-off could push Bitcoin below $60,000 |
| Peter Schiff | AI could be a competitor to Bitcoin | Competition for capital, power and data-center resources |
These positions address different potential pressures. Shapira’s concern centers on security expectations around the Bitcoin network. Hayes’ warning concerns a wider market sell-off, while Schiff’s argument focuses on competition for resources and investment capital. None of these views establishes that an AI-driven event will occur.
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What Bitcoin Price Action Currently Says?
Bitcoin had stalled below an $80,000 to $82,200 resistance band over the weekend, trading between $79,750 and $80,100 during Saturday activity. The same report is showing that wallets holding at least 100 BTC added about 60,000 BTC in August, while smaller wallets sold a similar amount.
That reported accumulation does not settle the disagreement between Shapira and Buterin. It is one market data point alongside a debate that is primarily about potential AI-related security risks and the ability of Bitcoin’s ecosystem to respond to them.
The disagreement leaves several issues at the center of the discussion. Shapira’s claim concerns the possibility that AI could undermine Bitcoin’s expected security guarantees and coincide with a decline of more than 50% over two years. At a Bitcoin price near $80,000, that scale of decline would equate to a level around $40,000.
The available reporting presents these as competing views about AI, security, and market pressure. It does not establish which view will prove correct over the two-year period discussed by Shapira.
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