If AI really cracks Bitcoin's elliptic curve signature, does that mean Bitcoin is doomed? Sammon explains: Right now, Bitcoin transactions require using a private key to generate a digital signature, proving that the money is indeed yours. The elliptic curve is the mathematical foundation currently used to protect this signature mechanism. If one day AI can reverse-engineer the private key from the public key, hackers could impersonate you, sign transactions, and transfer your Bitcoin away. But Bitcoin itself doesn’t rely on elliptic curves to exist. Bitcoin’s transaction records are already public—it doesn’t encrypt transaction content using elliptic curves; it only uses digital signatures to confirm who has the right to spend the money. So even if the current ECDSA or Schnorr signatures are cracked, they can be replaced with other signature methods. To put it simply: it’s like your house lock might get picked, so you need to replace the lock, but there’s no need to tear down and rebuild the house. And alternative solutions are already in the works. Researchers at Blockstream have developed a new signature scheme called SHRINCS, which relies solely on hash functions. It doesn’t require elliptic curves or other complex mathematical structures. It’s already implemented on the Liquid sidechain, and there’s a draft proposal for improvements aimed at Bitcoin’s main network. Of course, switching to a new signature comes with costs. Currently, Bitcoin’s Schnorr signatures are only 64 bytes, while SHRINCS signatures might require several hundred bytes or even a few kilobytes. The larger the signature, the more block space each transaction takes up, which means fewer transactions can fit into each block, potentially increasing transaction fees. Wallet backups and key management would also become more complicated. However, Samson believes that scaling technologies like the Lightning Network, Liquid, and Ark can handle a large number of transactions, easing the pressure on the main chain. If ECDLP is broken, it would only retire ECDSA and Schnorr—it wouldn’t retire Bitcoin. In short, the lock Bitcoin currently uses might indeed be cracked someday, but a backup lock has already been created. The remaining question is: can the entire Bitcoin network successfully switch to the new lock before the old one fails?