This Bitcoin Bridge Shut Itself Down Because AI Was Finding Bugs Too Fast

Boltz has suspended its Bitcoin swap service indefinitely, saying a surge in AI-assisted attacks has left it unable to continue operating safely.

In a series of posts on X on Monday, the company said swaps are disabled “until further notice” and that it cannot provide an estimate for when the service will return.

“We can’t give an ETA as of this time, but will provide an update once we know more,” Boltz wrote.

Boltz is a non-custodial Bitcoin swap service that lets users move Bitcoin between the Lightning Network and the blockchain’s base layer without giving the company custody of their funds. Boltz has not published transaction volume figures. Boltz currently holds around $262,000 in total value locked, according to DeFiLlama.

Because users retain control of their assets throughout the process, Boltz said “no user funds were ever at risk.”

“To be clear: this is not a response to a single incident,” the company wrote. “Over the past months we have seen a steady rise in automated, AI-assisted probing of our infrastructure, and we have dealt with several exploits. Each was contained, but the pattern is clear: attackers now iterate faster than a team our size can find and patch.”

Boltz said the pace of attacks accelerated over the past few days, leading it to conclude it could no longer safely operate its swap service.

“After reviewing the results of our own recent security scans, we cannot responsibly re-enable Boltz swaps, especially as we are being actively targeted by what appear to be multiple resourceful groups while we race to deploy fixes,” the company wrote.

The company said its API remains available to process cooperative refunds, unilateral refunds continue to work because they do not depend on Boltz’s infrastructure, and customer support remains available.

Boltz argued the attacks reflect a broader change facing Bitcoin infrastructure operators.

“What we are seeing is a major paradigm shift for Bitcoin services operating on an open source stack, and it needs careful analysis,” the company wrote. “Do not expect swap services to resume shortly.”

The announcement comes as the cryptocurrency industry grapples with how AI is changing cyberattacks.

On Tuesday, Ledger CTO Charles Guillemet warned that AI allows attackers to scan code and uncover vulnerabilities “at machine speed,” while defenders are increasingly relying on AI to find the same flaws first. The comments came as fallout from the Coldcard exploit continued to grow, with losses nearing $130 million.