BITCOIN POLICY INSTITUTE FIRES THE AI LETTER — DEFENDER-CLASS DEMANDS TRUSTED ACCESS TO FRONTIER MODELS
"Today, Bitcoin Policy Institute and a broad coalition from across the digital-asset ecosystem are publishing an open letter calling on the world’s leading AI labs to provide qualified open-source defenders with trusted access to frontier AI models." — @bitcoinpolicy, 10:48 AM ET Mon Aug 10.
Bitcoin Policy Institute filed the letter at 10:48 AM ET Monday. 89.7K views inside two hours. The coalition signatures read like a who’s who of Bitcoin operator infrastructure: Anchorage, AnchorWatch, Bitcoin Optech, BitGo, Blockstream, Bitwise, Casa, Chaincode Labs, Coinbase, and dozens more. What they’re asking for is straightforward: give the people defending open-source Bitcoin infrastructure the same trusted access to frontier AI models that the attackers already have.
THE COALITION
Full signatories at btcpolicy.org/ailetter. Selected operator-tier names visible in the thread: Anchorage, AnchorWatch, Bitcoin Optech, BitGo, Bitnob, Bitshala, Bitwise, Block (Jack Dorsey), Blockstream, Bitcoin Brink, BTCPay Server, Btrust, Cake Wallet, Casa, Chaincode Labs, Coinbase, Ego Death Capital. Every one of them either builds Bitcoin infrastructure or funds the people who do.
The context is the past several weeks. Coldcard MK3 got drained for $38M after a five-year silent entropy vulnerability was root-caused by external forensics. Boltz shut down indefinitely citing AI-accelerated attackers outrunning small open-source teams. Zeus pulled infrastructure offline three times in a week. Every one of those failures shared a shape: attackers with AI leverage vs defenders without. The asymmetry is now the tape.
WHAT LOPP ALREADY SAID
Jameson Lopp on record last week: ‘AI is reshaping wallet security. The defender’s clock is behind.’ NVK agreed on record after the Coldcard drain. Wizard Sardine post-mortem showed one character in a build flag stood between the safeguard and the loss. The BPI letter is the coalition version of the same read: parity or bust.
This is the Technologist tier organizing at the policy layer. Not asking for regulation. Not asking for permission. Asking for tool parity — the same class of AI capability the attackers already deploy against the wallet layer. Read as: the open-source Bitcoin defender class has decided the fight is now a defender-vs-attacker AI race, and the incumbent labs sit on the tools that decide the winner.
The attackers have the tools.
The defenders are asking for the same tools.
The asymmetry is the tape.
The defenders are asking for the same tools.
The asymmetry is the tape.
btcpolicy.org/ailetter · mon aug 10 · 89.7K views