Crypto Firms Advocate for Bitcoin Developers’ Early Access to Advanced AI Models

A coalition of cryptocurrency firms has urged leading artificial intelligence (AI) laboratories to grant Bitcoin developers early access to their most advanced models. This initiative aims to enhance the security of open-source financial infrastructure. The Bitcoin Policy Institute (BPI) published a letter outlining concerns that many digital asset advocates lack access to sophisticated AI lab programs.

They are often restricted by safeguards on publicly available frontier systems, forcing them to use less capable open-weight models. The signatories advocated for frontier AI labs to establish or expand trusted-access programs for qualified individuals safeguarding open-source financial infrastructure.

The letter emphasized the critical role of open-source software in supporting digital and financial infrastructure, noting that Bitcoin alone secures over $1 trillion in value. It further stated that vulnerabilities within open-source infrastructure could jeopardize life savings. The open letter garnered support from numerous crypto companies and organizations, including the African Bitcoin Institute, Anchorage Digital, BitGo, Bitwise, Blockstream, Bull Bitcoin, MARA, Kraken, Ledger, and Trezor.

The BPI indicated that it had received multiple independent reports from open-source maintainers detailing sophisticated actors, potentially foreign adversaries, employing advanced AI capabilities to perpetuate attacks. The letter highlighted that frontier AI is transforming the economics of security research and cyber operations. Advanced models can analyze extensive codebases, identify weaknesses, and accelerate complex technical tasks for both defenders and adversaries.

Advances in AI-assisted vulnerability discovery have prompted apprehension across the crypto security sector. New models, such as Claude Opus 4.8 and ChatGPT 5.5, have contributed to what has been described as a “vulnerability apocalypse” for the crypto industry. Data from DefiLlama indicates that hacking activity within the industry surged in April 2026, with malicious actors stealing over $634 million from cryptocurrency platforms.

This represented the highest monthly total since the Bybit hack, which contributed to losses of approximately $1.4 billion in February 2025. The BPI expressed concern that without dedicated access programs, defenders might lack the necessary tools to keep pace with evolving threats to the infrastructure they maintain.