Bitcoin Magazine

Chinese AI Beats Restricted OpenAI and Anthropic Cybersecurity Models, Bitcoin Industry Warns

Bitcoin company leaders and open-source developers are publicly stating that Chinese AI models are currently outperforming restricted American frontier systems in defensive cybersecurity work, forcing researchers to rely on them to secure critical Bitcoin infrastructure.

Rob Hamilton, CEO of AnchorWatch, a Bitcoin self-custody insurance company, reported cripling American AI restrictions. After integrating OpenAI’s trusted cyber program (having already completed KYC months earlier), he was blocked from further analysis on a codebase he had already responsibly disclosed. “It absolutely guts me as a patriotic American to have to do this, but I will be going back to using Chinese open source models to conduct my research to protect Bitcoin infrastructure,” Hamilton wrote. “Black hats will not hit these issues. The white hats will.” Days later, he gained access to OpenAI’s “Daybreak Blue” cyber model and was blocked again within 19 minutes while red-teaming Bitcoin infrastructure.

Francis Pouliot, founder of Bull Bitcoin, a Bitcoin-only exchange focused on self-custody infrastructure, described the situation bluntly. “I have never seen OpenAI this cucked. It’s cucked beyond belief now. Not even for security, for anything related to Bitcoin,” he posted. “USA AI industry is completely cooked if they don’t change this path,” he concluded, adding “Open-source Chinese LLMs. [orange heart emoji],” meaning that open Chinese models like Kimi K3 are actually helpful to Bitcoin. In a follow-up, Pouliot detailed how a Chinese open-source model identified a money-stealing exploit in a project he was auditing, demonstrated it on regtest, and helped patch it. When he asked the American models he pays for to review the same patch, they refused.

PortlandHODL, a Bitcoin Core contributor who builds for AnchorWatch, publicly highlighted the performance gap. “US-based Frontier AI Model – ‘You’re absolutely right!’ Chinese Open Model – ‘78 critical vulnerabilities found.’ The implications of this are unfathomable,” he posted. In a follow-up, he added that he felt he was “basically asking Xi to not get my software hacked at this point,” calling for OpenAI and Anthropic to create proper access programs for U.S. citizens doing defensive security work.

Alex Thorn, Head of Firmwide Research at Galaxy, signed a recent Bitcoin Policy Institute open letter demanding trusted access to frontier models for open-source defenders. “Americans should not have to rely on Chinese AI to defend themselves, their projects, companies, or clients from cyber-attacks,” he wrote. “RED TEAM NEEDS THE MODELS.”

On August 10, the Bitcoin Policy Institute — a Bitcoin and, of late, AI-focused policy think tank — published an open letter signed by more than 70 organizations across the digital-asset ecosystem, including major custodians, exchanges, mining firms, and open-source development groups. The letter calls on frontier AI labs to establish clear trusted-access programs for qualified open-source and digital-asset defenders. It argues that current restrictions and safety guardrails leave legitimate security researchers without access to the strongest models, forcing them to rely on less capable open-weight alternatives while sophisticated attackers face no such limits. The signatories request early access to cyber-capable models, sufficient compute, secure environments for reviewing code, and direct channels with lab security teams, stating that frontier AI could become one of the most powerful defensive technologies available if defenders are given fair access.

These statements reflect a broad pattern among Bitcoin security researchers: American models from OpenAI and Anthropic frequently refuse or restrict legitimate defensive work, even to users who are supposed to have been granted explicit access, while Chinese models such as Kimi K3 operate without the same guardrails and are delivering confirmed results. Concerns about hosting infrastructure of Chinese models being an attack vector can also be mitigated, since they are open source and can be run on American-hosted data centers, a trend that is likely to threaten the U.S. AI market if it continues.

Coldcard Exploit Triggers Ecosystem-Wide Response

The cybersecurity pressure became acute in the Bitcoin industry after a firmware flaw in Coldcard hardware wallets was exploited beginning July 30, resulting in the theft of well over $100 million in bitcoin from seeds generated with insufficient entropy. Bitcoin Magazine published an urgent advisory urging affected users to migrate funds: COLDCARD SECURITY RISK: IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUIRED.

In response, a volunteer effort known as the Bitcoin Red Team formed, led by open-source developer Calle (creator of Cashu and the Android version of Bitchat) and Rob Hamilton. The group has conducted large-scale AI-assisted audits of Bitcoin open-source repositories, using models including Kimi K3 as the primary workhorse alongside limited access to Western systems. Early results, covered by Bitcoin Magazine, showed thousands of findings across hundreds of projects, including dozens of critical issues, with spending covered largely by OpenSats.

By August 8, after more than 100 hours of work involving dozens of contributors, the team reported scanning 501 projects and producing 7,958 findings, of which 1,280 were rated high or critical severity. The majority of compute spend continued to go to Chinese open-weight models.

Lessons from the Red Team Campaign

Most recently, Calle shared lessons from the intensive red-team period. The effort has essentially completed a basic scan of virtually the entire Bitcoin open-source landscape; low-hanging fruit is largely exhausted, the developer wrote on this X account. Maintainers across projects have validated many of the critical and high-severity reports, while response times from projects vary widely and serve as a signal of overall health.

Key takeaways include the need for every project to maintain its own permanent AI audit pipeline going forward. Projects that began such reviews months earlier are in a markedly stronger position. Unmaintained repositories should be treated as likely broken and unreliable. 

Calle also warned that the human-only era of open-source security review is over; verification is now effectively free, and information overload must be handled with AI rather than complaints about PR slop. Multiple concurrent and diverse human approaches remain the strongest method for finding vulnerabilities, and external red-teaming will likely be required indefinitely. 

Calle also repeatedly emphasized that developers should stop writing security-critical code in C. In a follow-up post he explained: “we’re finding memory-safety vulnerabilities in c projects that are prevented by default in many other languages. In the past, finding a simple buffer overflow wasn’t enough. You’d need a highly skilled hacker to turn the vulnerability into a working end-to-end exploit. Today, that’s a single prompt.”

Bitcoin was the first major open-source ecosystem to confront this collision between accumulated human code and frontier AI capability. The rest of the software world is expected to follow.

This post Chinese AI Beats Restricted OpenAI and Anthropic Cybersecurity Models, Bitcoin Industry Warns first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Juan Galt.

Riot Platforms has signed a long-term data center lease agreement tied to Anthropic, giving the Bitcoin miner another route into AI and high-performance computing as miners continue looking beyond block rewards.

The company’s filing describes a 20-year lease agreement for 191 megawatts of critical IT capacity at its Rockdale campus. The deal carries total revenue potential of up to $16.1 billion if extension options are exercised.

That is a huge number, but it needs careful framing.

This does not mean Riot is abandoning Bitcoin mining. It means the company is using its power portfolio and data-center footprint to diversify into AI compute, a strategy more miners are exploring as energy assets become valuable beyond crypto.

For more details, visit the official Sec platform.

TL;DR

• Riot signed a 20-year data center lease agreement tied to Anthropic.
• The agreement covers 191 MW of critical IT capacity at Rockdale.
• Total revenue potential could reach $16.1 billion if extension options are used.

Why AI Compute Appeals To Bitcoin Miners

Bitcoin miners are energy infrastructure companies as much as crypto companies.

They own or lease power capacity, operate large facilities, manage cooling, negotiate grid relationships, and build data-center environments. Those skills overlap with AI and high-performance computing, even if the hardware and customer base are different.

AI companies need power. They need data centers. They need long-term capacity.

Miners already have some of the hardest pieces in place.

That is why the sector has spent the last few years exploring whether mining sites can be repurposed or expanded for AI workloads.

Rockdale Gives Riot A Strategic Asset

Riot’s Rockdale campus has long been one of its key infrastructure assets.

A 191 MW lease tied to critical IT capacity shows how valuable that infrastructure can be when pointed at AI demand. Unlike Bitcoin mining, where revenue depends heavily on BTC price, network difficulty, block rewards, and fees, long-term compute leases can create more predictable contracted revenue.

That predictability is attractive.

Bitcoin mining is cyclical. AI compute demand is currently intense. A miner that can serve both markets may be better positioned than one relying on mining alone.

The risk is execution. AI data-center customers require different standards, capital expenditure, service-level expectations, and operational reliability.

This Is Diversification, Not A Full Exit

The market should avoid overreacting in either direction.

This is not proof that Bitcoin mining is dead. It is also not a guarantee that every miner can become an AI data-center company. Power access gives miners a head start, but AI infrastructure is not just mining with different machines.

Customers like Anthropic need high reliability, networking, cooling, uptime commitments, and specialized buildouts.

Still, Riot’s agreement shows that the mining industry’s power assets have optionality. In a world where AI companies are desperate for energy and capacity, miners may have more leverage than the market once assumed.

The Revenue Potential Is Conditional

The headline revenue potential of up to $16.1 billion is striking, but investors need to remember the “if.”

That figure depends on extension options and long-term execution. It should not be treated as immediate guaranteed revenue. The base lease, customer demand, buildout milestones, and future options all matter.

Long-term contracted capacity can be valuable, but the value unfolds over time.

For investors, the key questions are capital cost, margin profile, timing, counterparty obligations, and how the AI business sits alongside Riot’s mining operations.

Bitcoin Mining Is Becoming Power Monetization

The larger shift is that miners are starting to think less like pure BTC producers and more like power monetization platforms.

Sometimes the best use of power is mining Bitcoin. Sometimes it may be AI compute. Sometimes it may be grid services, hosting, curtailment programs, or hybrid models.

That flexibility could reshape the sector.

Miners with strong power assets may be valued differently from those with only machines and thin margins. Riot’s Anthropic-linked lease points in that direction.

Bitcoin mining remains part of the story. AI compute is becoming another chapter.

This article is based on Riot Platforms’ August 2026 corporate filing and data-center lease disclosure.

This article was written by the News Desk and edited by Samuel Rae.

This report is based on information released by Sec. at Sec

Bitcoin Magazine

Core Scientific Adds More Bitcoin To Balance Sheet in Q2 Despite Selling Strategy

Nasdaq-listed miner Core Scientific is rebuilding its Bitcoin treasury after seeing its balance sheet shrink at the start of this year. 

In a regulatory filing Tuesday, the miner said it had a total of 848 Bitcoins — worth over $54 million at today’s prices — after finishing the first quarter of this year with 547 Bitcoins. 

Core Scientific finished 2025 with 2,537 but started aggressively selling coins to fund its transition to the AI and high-powered computing industry. 

But the miner has started stacking Bitcoin again, using coins from mining, in order to have a strong balance sheet. It added 301 coins this quarter alone. 

Selling Bitcoins can reduce reliance on equity issuance or additional borrowing, especially in a higher-interest rate environment. It also gives a company more cash on hand.

Core Scientific shares (CORZ) were trading about 2% lower Tuesday afternoon in New York. 

The company, which operates data centers across Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and Texas, added that its revenue in the second quarter of this year rose sharply to $164.2 million from $78.6 million in Q2 2025. 

Gross profit rose to $70 million from $5 million in the same period as the year before. 

Core Scientific is one of a number of top publicly listed miners that have started directing resources to providing the infrastructure for high-powered computing.

On Tuesday, the miner signed a deal with chipmaker AMD for 2.5 gigawatts ‌of data center capacity. The deal will give ​AMD access to more than 500 megawatts of Core Scientific’s AI-ready ‌data ⁠center capacity. 

A number of Bitcoin miners have already gone all-in on the industry as minting the biggest digital coin by market cap becomes harder and demand for AI compute surges. 

Instead of dropping mining operations completely, a number of Bitcoin miners have instead marketed themselves as “compute” or “digital infrastructure” companies while switching between minting digital coins and providing compute for AI — depending on which is more profitable.

Branching out into AI data centers isn’t always easy for miners as the world of HPC requires more expertise with heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems than those for Bitcoin mining.

This post Core Scientific Adds More Bitcoin To Balance Sheet in Q2 Despite Selling Strategy first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.