Boltz Suspends Services Following Surge in AI-Assisted Hacking Attempts

The non-custodial protocol said attackers are identifying and adapting exploits faster than its small development team can detect and fix them.

Boltz, a non-custodial Bitcoin swap service, said it is suspending its platform until further notice following a rise in AI-assisted hacking attempts over the past few months.

In a post on X on Monday, Boltz said the decision followed a steady rise in “automated AI-assisted probing” targeting its infrastructure throughout this year.

“Over the past months… 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.”

“After reviewing the results of our recent security scans, we cannot responsibly restore Boltz swaps, especially as multiple resourceful groups appear to be actively targeting us while we work to deploy fixes,” the team said.

Boltz’s operational pause highlights the growing challenge facing smaller development teams, as attackers identify vulnerabilities and adapt exploits more quickly than the teams can respond.

“In the past few days alone we saw a drastic acceleration [of attacks] and we do not believe this asymmetry will reverse,” said Boltz.

Solana Security Chief Calls for Automated Cyber Defenses#

In July, Solana Foundation’s new chief information security officer, Michael Coates, told that the rise of AI has made a shift toward automated security defenses increasingly necessary.

“We’re at a tipping point as an industry where humans cannot scale to meet these threats,” said Coates.

“The only path forward we have is to have autonomous defense that operates at the speed of machines.”

PayPerQ, a pay-per-prompt AI service that accepts Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, said it has also experienced a surge in exploit attempts, which may be powered by AI.

“We’ve been defending against exploit attempts almost every other week for the past several months, and we believe most of them are AI-powered. It’s an extremely dangerous environment right now.”

Company Confirms No User Funds Were Ever at Risk#

Boltz enables users to perform non-custodial, trustless atomic swaps, allowing Bitcoin and Bitcoin-denominated assets to move between the Bitcoin mainnet and Layer-2 networks such as the Lightning Network and Liquid Network.

According to DefiLlama, Boltz had a total value locked (TVL) of $180,860 at the time of writing.

Boltz said user funds have never been at risk because all swaps rely on advanced cryptographic technology and operate in a non-custodial manner, allowing users to maintain full control of their assets throughout the entire swap process.

Boltz said its API will remain operational to process refunds, while its support team will continue to be available to assist users.

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