Eigen Labs and Zcash group open HashSmash, a contest for AI to attack SHA‑256
Anyone can now point an AI agent at SHA-256, SHA-3, BLAKE3 and Poseidon and submit attacks. Eigen Labs and Shielded Labs say people were already probing SHA-3 and BLAKE3 within 23 minutes.
Eigen Labs and Shielded Labs, a Zcash organisation, launched HashSmash on 5 October, which they describe as an open competition to test how far AI can advance attacks on widely used hash functions. The four targets are SHA-256, SHA-3, BLAKE3 and Poseidon, which the organisers say help secure blockchains, zero-knowledge systems, software and internet infrastructure.
Participants point an AI agent at the challenges. The release names SAT solvers, automated differential search and formal methods as tools. Each proposed attack has to show what it defeats and how much computing it needs. An AI verifier checks submissions first. Expert cryptographers then evaluate them. All results are public on Yukon, Eigen Labs' research platform.
Zooko Wilcox, Zcash co-founder, said in the release: "AI's rapid advance could threaten the cryptographic foundations of digital security." Soubhik Deb, Eigen Labs' head of research, called cryptography "the bedrock of individual freedom and privacy on the Internet."
The organisers say Yukon has produced results before, including an ECDSA benchmark that they say beats Google Quantum AI's by more than 60 percent. Those claims were not checked here. The release names no prize and no end date, and no attack on any of the four functions has been reported as successful.