Keep calm and enter 'bunker mode,' crypto bros say

The crypto-clutching began when Justin Drake, a researcher at the blockchain platform Ethereum, said on X on Wednesday that people holding the digital currency should plan to enter "bunker mode" by moving their funds to fresh addresses.

Drake cited the proclivity of OpenAI models to solve thought-to-be-impossible math problems a development he said hackers might one day use to derive private keys from public keys of blockchain wallets, which are usually protected by mathematical computation.

"Yesterday's OpenAI drop made it clear that mathematical superintelligence is upon us," Drake said in reference to the ChatGPT maker releasing hundreds of new AI-driven mathematical results on Tuesday.

"Today I call upon the blockchain industry to calmly begin planning for 'bunker mode,'" he added.

Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin took a more cautious approach. Buterin said on X that people shouldn't "scramble to move their funds to new wallets today."

He did say, however, that the crypto industry needs to find a more robust way to encrypt private keys.

"We should take the risks to cryptography from AI-accelerated math seriously," Buterin said.

Bitcoin transactions, along with those of other currencies, are secured with cryptography, a coding system in which transactions are encrypted with public keys and access to bitcoin itself is controlled by a private key.