# Report: OpenAI Interested in Acquiring Trail of Bits

*Author: William M. Peaster*
*Published: Oct 14, 2026*
*Source: https://www.bankless.com/read/news/report-openai-interested-in-acquiring-trail-of-bits*

---

OpenAI is in early discussions to buy Trail of Bits, the New York security firm behind some of crypto’s most widely used smart contract tooling, [according to The Information](https://www.theinformation.com/articles/openai-early-talks-buy-security-startup-trail-bits). No price has surfaced, and the talks could still fall through. 

# **What’s the Scoop?**

- **Existing partners:** The pair launched [Patch the Planet](https://trailofbits.com/patch-the-planet/) in June, putting OpenAI’s Codex and cyber-specialized models in the hands of Trail of Bits engineers to find and fix bugs in critical open-source code. The effort has flagged 1,917 issues across 67 codebases so far, with 462 patches merged upstream. 

- **Crypto pedigree:** Trail of Bits has been a top-tier audit shop in crypto for years. It built open-source analyzers like Slither and Echidna and published reviews as recently as September for Offchain Labs and Gensyn. 

- **Onchain overlap:** Patch the Planet’s roster is mostly general-purpose software, but it still touches crypto. It covers Solady, a gas-optimized Solidity library, and the Noble cryptography libraries used across Ethereum’s JavaScript stack. 

- **Why OpenAI cares:** A deal would scale up OpenAI’s cybersecurity push as it competes with Anthropic in AI bug-hunting. Anthropic’s Mythos models have stoked exploit fears across crypto. 

- **Time will tell:** If this deal closes, the open question for crypto is whether one of its marquee auditors keeps taking protocol engagements under OpenAI’s roof. Either way, its open-source tooling isn’t going anywhere.
---

*This article is brought to you by [NEAR](https://www.bankless.com/sponsor/near-1785257427?ref=read/news/report-openai-interested-in-acquiring-trail-of-bits)*