Vitalik Buterin now confident AI won’t break crypto, betting 90% of his net worth

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has pushed back against predictions that artificial intelligence could trigger a 50% Bitcoin crash within two years.The debate began after Silicon Valley investor and AI-risk commentator Liron Shapiro said he sees a 50% probability that Bitcoin will fall more than 50% over the next two years because AI undermines what investors believe are the network’s security and robustness guarantees.However, Buterin took the other side of this position, saying:My basic reasons are that I am quite optimistic about cybersecurity in the long term and I see the primary problem as being getting the transition.Buterin argued that Bitcoin should be able to handle security failures that do not require social consensus, including attacks affecting clients, mining pools and other network infrastructure. He also placed a very low probability on AI producing a fundamental break in Bitcoin’s hashing functions or proof-of-work system.He said he would normally offer Shapiro a wager on the outcome, but his existing crypto holdings already amount to effectively making that bet with roughly 90% of his net worth. Buterin also suggested the same argument should apply to Ethereu...