Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has dismissed a prediction that artificial intelligence could drive Bitcoin’s price down by more than 50% within the next two years. Buterin said his cryptocurrency holdings already put around 90% of his net worth on the opposite side of that forecast.

Bitcoin was trading near $80,000 after touching a three-month high of $82,500 on September 3. A 50% decline from the $80,000 level would put Bitcoin at approximately $40,000.

Liron Shapira, a Silicon Valley investor and host of the Doom Debates podcast, believes there is a 50% chance Bitcoin could lose more than half its value over the next two years. He argues that increasingly advanced AI could eventually challenge the security guarantees that investors currently associate with the Bitcoin network.

Shapira’s concern is that more powerful AI systems could uncover new ways to attack the technology supporting Bitcoin. His prediction focuses on the possibility of weakened security assurances rather than claiming that Bitcoin’s cryptographic system has already been compromised.

The debate highlights two separate issues: whether AI could create new technical vulnerabilities and how markets might respond if investors perceived Bitcoin as being under threat. At present, there is no evidence that AI has broken Bitcoin’s underlying cryptography.

Buterin has taken the opposite view, saying he remains optimistic about cybersecurity over the long term. He believes Bitcoin can address many network-level problems without requiring agreement across the entire community.

He also drew a line between attacks on Bitcoin’s infrastructure and an actual failure of its core cryptographic technology. Developers, node operators and mining pools could upgrade their software or infrastructure to deal with certain network-level threats. Buterin said the likelihood of AI breaking Bitcoin’s hash functions or proof-of-work mechanism is extremely low.

Rather than entering a separate wager, Buterin said his existing crypto portfolio already represents a major financial bet against Shapira’s prediction. He estimated that approximately 90% of his net worth is tied to crypto assets. He added that similar AI-related security questions could eventually apply to Ethereum because both networks depend on cryptographic protections.

In a separate discussion, Buterin highlighted developments in succinct proofs and fully homomorphic encryption in 2026. Ethereum’s roadmap overhaul announced on August 10 also reportedly made quantum security a greater priority.

Three Different AI Risks for Bitcoin

Shapira is not the only prominent figure warning about the potential impact of AI on Bitcoin, although the risks identified by different commentators vary.

BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes has warned that AI-related credit stress could trigger a broader market sell-off and potentially push Bitcoin below $60,000. Bitcoin critic Peter Schiff has argued that AI could compete with Bitcoin for investment capital, electricity and data-center capacity.

These arguments describe different potential sources of pressure. Shapira is focused on Bitcoin’s technological security, Hayes on broader financial-market risks and Schiff on competition for resources and capital.

None of the predictions establishes that AI will cause a Bitcoin crash. Instead, they represent competing views on how the rapid development of artificial intelligence could affect Bitcoin and the wider crypto market.

Bitcoin Faces Key Resistance

Bitcoin remained below the $80,000-$82,200 resistance area over the weekend, trading between roughly $79,750 and $80,100 during Saturday’s session.

Meanwhile, wallets holding at least 100 BTC reportedly accumulated around 60,000 BTC in August, while smaller wallets sold a similar amount. The activity suggests stronger buying from larger holders but does not settle the debate over AI-related risks.

The key question is whether increasingly capable AI systems could eventually weaken Bitcoin’s security assumptions enough to trigger a major loss of confidence. If Bitcoin were to fall more than 50% from around $80,000, the price would drop toward $40,000.

For now, Shapira’s forecast remains speculative. Buterin believes Bitcoin’s security architecture is resilient enough to withstand most network-level challenges, while Shapira argues that future AI advances could test assumptions that the market currently considers reliable.