Anthropic's Claude Solves Decades-Old NIST Curve Mystery, Prompting Debate Over Bitcoin Design

Anthropic revealed that its AI model Claude solved a 26-year-old cryptographic mystery in under 30 minutes, showing NSA-supplied NIST elliptic curve seeds were generated from standard timestamps rather than concealed backdoors. The discovery sparked debate over Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto's decision to use the secp256k1 curve instead of NIST P-256 due to surveillance suspicions. Experts including Blockstream CEO Adam Back noted the decision was justified given the lack of transparency. Bitcoin's underlying cryptography remains fully secure, leaving quantum resistance as developers' primary focus. Anthropic donated its $36,864 bug bounty to charity.