Zcash (ZEC) Co-Founder Eli Ben-Sasson Warns AI Could Threaten Crypto Keys Before Quantum

Ben-Sasson Puts AI Ahead of Quantum

Zcash (ZEC) co-founder Eli Ben-Sasson has warned that fast-improving artificial intelligence could strain the cryptography protecting crypto wallets before quantum computers become the greater danger, a risk he lays out rather than a breach anyone has confirmed. In a post published on X on Thursday, the cryptographer wrote that the industry faces a key threat besides quantum computers, one that grows as AI tools turn into weapons for cybersecurity attacks. “Today, more than ever before, we rely on cryptography,” he wrote. “Your crypto keys, your online life, any app that holds something important to you, it's all secured by cryptography.” His argument runs that the growing power of AI tools puts more pressure on the cryptography behind wallets, and that this problem lands on a shorter clock than the quantum one. “This quick rise in cybersecurity attacks is not going to slow down, not with AI becoming so powerful,” Ben-Sasson wrote. The practical target in such an attack is the private key, the secret string that authorizes spending and that no blockchain can restore once a thief has copied it. Ben-Sasson paired the warning with a prescription. He called for stronger cryptographic standards, naming hash-based constructions such as ZK-STARKs in particular, zero-knowledge proofs whose security rests on hash functions rather than on the discrete-logarithm problems quantum algorithms are known to break. He framed the exposure as wider than crypto alone, covering any application that holds something important to its user. For Zcash, whose value proposition rests on proof systems that hide transaction details, a co-founder's view on which cryptography survives the next decade names the very layer the protocol's privacy guarantees depend on. He did not point to a specific attack in which AI has already broken a Zcash wallet, and none is recorded in his post.

Vulnerability Disclosures Nearly Doubled

The warning lands with measurable evidence behind part of it. Google Threat Intelligence statistics show that the number of software vulnerabilities disclosed each month has almost doubled in the past year, a pace that turns AI into a powerful scanner for potential system weaknesses. Jameson Lopp, chief security officer at self-custody provider Casa, made the same point from the defensive side: attackers can already turn AI loose to hunt conventional software bugs and flaws in wallet firmware. On his reading, the conversation should focus on specific security vulnerabilities in existing software today rather than on a hypothetical future AI threat. The timing follows the Binance hack weeks earlier, in which around $6.3 billion was taken from the exchange's hot wallets. Binance temporarily suspended withdrawals while it investigated the breach and says it has since recovered about 95% of the assets taken. That episode put key security, the same subject of Ben-Sasson's post, at the center of the industry's agenda for the weeks since. For holders weighing what changes in practice, the sources point to little that is new: verify wallet firmware, keep keys offline where possible, and work from a checklist such as our guide on how to protect your crypto assets. In markets, the reaction was measured: ZEC slipped 3.7% over the last 24 hours, extending the cooling that followed its climb past $1,300 after the US midterms. The standards debate also has a concrete base in Zcash's own history, since earlier generations of the protocol relied on a trusted setup through the Zcash ceremony, a component that hash-based proving removes entirely.

A Warning About Capability, Not a Recorded Theft

The primary record here is the post itself, and it states a trajectory, not an event: pressure on wallet cryptography will build, while no incident report in the record claims an AI system has already drained a wallet end to end. What is documented is narrower: disclosure volumes nearly doubled over the past year, and Casa's Jameson Lopp says automated searches for software bugs and firmware weaknesses are already routine. A skeptic can file the warning as FUD, and ZEC's 3.7% dip over the past 24 hours suggests the market is treating it that way, though post-rally momentum had already cooled. Traders watching the range can follow it in our Zcash technical analysis. As of Thursday, nobody has documented an AI-executed breach of wallet cryptography, and Ben-Sasson's post is a call to prepare for the case where that stops being true.