Bitcoin Swap Protocol Boltz Suspends Swaps Indefinitely After AI-Assisted Attack Attempts

Boltz, a leading protocol for Bitcoin atomic swaps and bridging, has suspended its swap services indefinitely after reporting a surge in sophisticated, AI-assisted attack attempts. The shutdown began at 5:54 a.m. ET, cutting off Lightning and Liquid swap rails for wallets including Aqua and Bull Bitcoin. Roughly six hours later, the team said it had observed “a steady rise in automated, AIassisted probing” over recent months and had handled multiple exploits. While each incident was contained, Boltz said attackers are now iterating faster than the small team can identify and patch vulnerabilities. The protocol added that the activity appeared to come from “resourceful groups,” and said it could not “responsibly reenable Boltz swaps.” Boltz said user bitcoin remains safe because the service is non-custodial, and that related operational costs were absorbed internally. The protocol’s API remains online to process refunds for incoming swaps. The suspension follows an earlier move on Aug. 1, when Boltz paused its Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) swaps due to an EVM integration bug. Boltz said the latest activity shifted away from EVM and toward the Bitcoin ecosystem. The incident comes amid a string of recent security events across the sector, including Metronome’s July 31 synthetic asset shortfall tied to an embedded oracle delay that led to about $16 million in losses, and an Aug. 1 Adform script-poisoning campaign that disrupted wallet address copy-paste behavior. A high-profile case cited in the community is a Coldcard firmware vulnerability that has reportedly resulted in $116 million in bitcoin being drained. Lucas Ferreira of Bitcoin nonprofit Vinteum said Boltz faces an increasingly difficult threat landscape: “Boltz has a brilliant team, but it’s a small team facing increasingly sophisticated, AIpowered groups of hackers.” Wallet providers began responding as the outage rippled through users. Francis Pouliot, CEO of Bull Bitcoin, said the company is working to restore affected swap capabilities. Samson Mow, CEO of JAN3, which develops the Aqua wallet, said his team is coordinating with Boltz to bring functionality back to optimal levels. Lightning wallet ZEUS also said it would go offline during the Boltz downtime and promised updates. — ZEUS (@ZeusLN) August 3, 2026