Vitalik Buterin Opens Devcon 8 in Costume, Warns AI Could Crack Crypto

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin posted on X on Nov. 3, 2026—the day he opened Devcon 8 in Mumbai in a smiley mask—warning that AI might race through roughly 50 years of math in five years and discover shortcuts that break the cryptography securing Ethereum and Bitcoin. He cited the elliptic curve discrete logarithm problem, which protects private keys on both networks, and pairings used in Ethereum validator signatures, as possible undiscovered weaknesses. He also said AI could speed work on lattice-based methods behind leading post-quantum standards. Buterin compared his concern to the early-1980s quadratic sieve, which sped up factoring and weakened RSA-style encryption. Devcon 8 runs through Nov. 6.