Boltz suspended Bitcoin exchange service indefinitely due to accelerated AI-assisted attack

On August 5, Boltz, the unmanaged bitcoin exchange service, suspended bitcoin exchange services indefinitely and stated that relevant services will be suspended until further notice and no recovery time can be provided for the time being. Boltz allows users to transfer Bitcoin between the Lightning Network and the Bitcoin base layer without the company hosting user funds. Boltz said its infrastructure has experienced a continued increase in automation, AI-assisted detection in the past few months, and has handled multiple exploit incidents. The company said each incident had been contained, but the attacker's iteration rate exceeded its team's ability to discover and patch the vulnerability. Boltz disclosed that the pace of attacks has accelerated in the past few days, and the company, after reviewing recent security scan results, concluded that it could not responsibly re-enable redemption services. Its API can still be used to process collaborative refunds, unilateral refunds can still run because they do not rely on Boltz infrastructure, and customer support remains available.