Bitcoin security researchers and company leaders say restrictions on U.S. frontier AI systems are forcing defenders of more than $1 trillion in crypto infrastructure to rely on Chinese open-source models that will perform legitimate code audits. The pressure coincided with an August 10 open letter from the Bitcoin Policy Institute signed by more than 40 Bitcoin and digital-asset organizations, including Coinbase, BitGo, Block, Blockstream and Anchorage Digital, calling on major AI labs to provide vetted open-source security researchers with controlled early access rather than unrestricted public release of highly cyber-capable models. The signatories said wallets, cryptographic libraries, payment processors, exchanges, custody services and Lightning Network tools across the Bitcoin ecosystem depend heavily on open-source software, while attackers are already using AI to accelerate vulnerability discovery and defenders are often constrained by model safety policies. They proposed trusted-access programs that would include pre-release models, compute resources, private code-review environments and direct communication channels with lab security teams. The appeal came after the volunteer Bitcoin Red Team used AI tools to audit Bitcoin-related code earlier in August, reviewing 390 projects in about 27.5 hours and submitting roughly 4,962 findings, including dozens of critical issues and hundreds of high-severity issues. Participants said AI-generated findings still require human verification to confirm whether vulnerabilities are real and to assess their severity. The risks are not theoretical: BTCPay Server previously disclosed that attackers actively exploited a flaw in older versions that could let them obtain LND administrator credentials and take control of associated wallets.