Hoskinson criticizes Buterin over warnings about AI threats to cryptography

Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson publicly criticized Vitalik Buterin for his recent statements about potential threats to cryptography posed by the development of artificial intelligence.

Hoskinson claims that the Ethereum co-founder's recommendations could harm internet security by slowing down the adoption of post-quantum protection algorithms.

According to Hoskinson, Buterin's warnings lack scientific basis. He labeled the call to increase key sizes by 10 times as "numerology," noting the absence of specific threat models or attack cost assessments.

Lattice-based cryptography has been studied for over 40 years, and modern algorithms already account for known attack vectors. Meanwhile, Hoskinson pointed out vulnerabilities in hash functions such as MD5 and SHA-1, as well as the mathematical structure of Poseidon in Ethereum.

Key points of criticism:

• The prediction of 50 years of AI discoveries in two years is not a threat model
• Increasing key size lacks scientific foundation and may be perceived as numerology
• Doubts about ML-KEM security could delay the implementation of robust post-quantum protection by browser and messenger developers

In conclusion, Hoskinson accused Buterin of distracting engineers from important research, which they later had to return to. As examples, he cited Plasma, Ethereum 2.0, and Casper projects.