Anthropic's Claude AI has reportedly solved a decades-old cryptographic mystery involving encryption standards developed by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), reigniting discussions about Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto's decision to use a different elliptic curve.
On October 16, 2026, reports emerged that Claude had identified the origins of mysterious seeds used in five National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) elliptic curves: P-192, P-224, P-256, P-384, and P-521.
According to the findings, the seeds originated from the C programming language's lrand48 pseudorandom number generator, initialized using Unix timestamps. The discovery reportedly took less than 30 minutes, potentially resolving a mystery that had troubled cryptographers for 26 years.
Ledger co-founder Nicolas Bacca reacted to the revelation on X with a playful comment, "Checkmate Satoshi," referencing Bitcoin's historical preference for an alternative cryptographic curve.
Blockstream CEO Adam Back also joined the conversation, criticizing the NSA for failing to disclose reproducible methods behind its standardized elliptic curves. Bacca subsequently clarified that his remark was intended as a joke.
The controversy dates back to 2000, when NIST standardized the P-256 elliptic curve using parameters derived from a 160-bit seed supplied by the NSA. Because the agency never publicly explained the seed's origin, researchers questioned whether the unexplained values could conceal a cryptographic backdoor.
Bitcoin's creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, instead selected secp256k1, an elliptic curve that differs from the NSA-associated P-256 standard.
Coinbase Wallet lead Pete Kim suggested that concerns about potential NSA backdoors significantly influenced the preference for secp256k1 in Bitcoin and Ethereum. Reacting to Claude's reported findings, Kim indicated that the discovery weakened longstanding suspicions about hidden vulnerabilities.
The revelation has renewed debate across the cryptocurrency community about whether Satoshi deliberately avoided P-256 because of its unexplained parameters.
However, the reported discovery does not establish why Satoshi selected secp256k1, nor does it conclusively prove that NIST curves contain no vulnerabilities.
Importantly, Claude's findings do not undermine the security of the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA), which remains fundamental to cryptocurrency transactions and digital signatures.
Instead, the development highlights how artificial intelligence could help researchers investigate longstanding cryptographic questions while strengthening transparency and trust in blockchain security standards.
