> be zcash
> one of the most carefully built privacy systems in crypto
> cryptographers, auditors, the actual best people in the field
> then, a bug surfaces
> it was sitting in two lines of code the whole time
> βlooks obvious in retrospectβ
> it always does
> this is not a zcash problem but a problem for every piece of software ever written
> smart people write code, smart people review it, but bugs ship anyway
> enter the doom take
> ai is now insanely good at finding bugs
> faster than humans, at scale
> βif machines find every bug then nothing is safe and trustless anything is deadβ
> mfw the thing everyone is scared of is the thing that saves us
> enter formal verification
> instead of writing code and testing it
> you write down exactly what it should do, in math
> then you PROVE it, with a proof a computer checks
> been around since the 1950s
> not new
> testing only checks the cases you thought of
> the bug lives in the case you didnt
> a proof covers every possible input at once
> all of them
> if any input misbehaves the proof just fails
> you cant ship broken and not know
> the zcash bug under formal verification is not a subtle thing someone has to spot but a hole in the proof
> proof doesnt complete
> you find out BEFORE anything ships
> not 4 hours into a thread on a saturday
> βok so why doesnt everyone do thisβ
> used to be slow and brutally hard
> lived in aerospace chip design nuclear
> writing proofs by hand = serious expertise serious time
> then ai showed up
> plot twist
> the exact skill that makes ai scary on offense
> reasoning through huge amounts of low level detail fast
> is the skill that makes formal verification finally cheap
> ai writes the code AND the proof
> humans keep the one job that matters: deciding what βcorrectβ means
> crypto cares more than anyone
> normal software patches the bug and moves on
> crypto code holds the money
> crypto code IS the rules
> being wrong is public and usually permanent
> highest stakes, worst margin for error, perfect fit for proving
> SO
> while the timeline argues about whether ai killed security forever
> some people are building for the other outcome via ai enhanced formal verification
> ai-assisted formal verification proven onchain can securely house ALL public software, this is the S in CROPS !!