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This week, OpenAI claimed its system produced a solution to a 90-year-old math problem in just 88 hours — thrilling researchers and terrifying some in the crypto world.
Artificial intelligence’s incredible ability to solve complicated problems could help unravel the security underpinning much of the cryptocurrency industry by accelerating the development of super-advanced quantum computers capable of cracking its defenses.
While much of Silicon Valley focuses on the advent of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and when we will reach it, crypto insiders believe that Q Day — when a quantum computer becomes powerful enough to crack the cryptography protecting Bitcoin and other digital assets — is coming even sooner.
“AI is rapidly increasing the rate at which the technical barriers are being overcome for quantum computers — AI is helping do that faster and faster in a way that was unimaginable even just one year ago,” Alex Pruden, CEO and Co-founder of Project Eleven, an applied research and engineer lab, told The Post.
Perhaps even more concerning is who could get there first. Earlier this year, China unveiled a new quantum processor that completed a specialized computing test in a few hundred seconds — a job they estimated would take a leading conventional supercomputer billions of years.
“My bet is that quantum computers will happen sooner than people expect and will happen before AGI,” Pruden said. “A quantum computer is actually a very specific thing. And in the last five years, people have made tremendous progress, partially assisted by AI in solving some of the technical problems.”
At issue: cryptography, which encrypts and secures information by using codes to scramble the material, relies on complicated math problems to keep things airtight — or lets someone with the right code gain access. Thus far, those math problems are so advanced that no one person or classical computer can solve them in any practical amount of time, which has made the systems effectively secure under current technology. For cryptocurrencies, those mathematical protections have kept the wrong person from accessing someone else’s coins.
It’s more than a bit ironic. An industry premised on the idea that an immutable ledger could keep money safe from government, thieves and institutions is now poised to potentially be even more vulnerable than traditional institutions.
Some crypto insiders attribute part of the recent decline in digital-asset prices — despite a friendlier regulatory environment — to investors pricing in the risk that quantum computers could crack the industry’s defenses.
Bitcoin is down nearly 35% from its October 2025 high, while Ethereum has fallen more than 50% since that month. Solana and XRP are each down 65% from their respective 2025 highs.
“The question is what do we do about it,” said Nic Carter, partner at the crypto investment firm Castle Island Ventures. He said that the industry is scrambling, but it’s difficult. “Trying to update anything on a decentralized platform is tricky.”
While there have been concerns that AI could hack everything from power grids to banks, more centralized institutions can coordinate security upgrades more efficiently and move to new and more secure ledgers.
Crypto’s decentralized nature isn’t able to adapt as quickly — developers, network operators, exchanges and wallet providers all have to coordinate changes before making tweaks.
Still, Carter considers himself an optimist. Cryptography designed to withstand quantum attacks already exists, he noted. The challenge is adapting it for these networks and getting people to adopt it.
He believes the industry will adapt — keeping one’s money from getting stolen is the ultimate motivation.
“I’m still an optimist,” Carter said. “We can’t sit idle.”