TLDR
- Anthropic’s Claude model traced five NSA-supplied NIST curve seeds to a basic random-number program in under 30 minutes.
- The program used timestamps from 1997 and 1998, and anyone can now rerun it to get the same numbers.
- Anthropic says a hidden backdoor is less likely, but questions remain about how some numbers were chosen.
- Bitcoin uses a different curve, secp256k1, and was not affected.
- Quantum computing remains a separate long-term concern for Bitcoin.
An Anthropic AI model has traced a set of numbers from the National Security Agency to an ordinary computer program. The numbers had puzzled cryptographers for 25 years.
CLAUDE SOLVES 25-YEAR-OLD MYSTERY SURROUNDING NSA CRYPTOGRAPHIC STANDARDS
Anthropic researchers report that Claude solved a decades-old mystery surrounding the origins of the NIST elliptic curves used in widely adopted cryptographic standards.
For more than 25 years,… https://t.co/Us4k2R2mEF
— Bitcoin News (@BitcoinNewsCom) October 16, 2026
Anthropic said its Claude model finished the work in less than 30 minutes. An employee asked an internal research model to look into the problem this month.
The numbers are starting values, called seeds, for elliptic curves used in digital signatures. In 2000, the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology adopted the curves with seeds supplied by the NSA.
The NSA never explained how it picked the seeds. Some researchers feared the agency had tested many options to find a curve with a hidden weakness.
What Claude found
Claude traced five seeds to lrand48, a random-number generator found in older C software libraries. The program used timestamps from 1997 and 1998.
The model matched the published seed for the P-256 curve at the 1,842nd candidate. Anyone can now rerun the program and get the same numbers.
Anthropic said the result makes it more confident the curves were chosen without backdoors. Questions remain about why the program skipped some usable candidates and how other parts of the curves were picked.
People who use the NIST curves do not need to change anything, Anthropic said. The finding does not fully rule out deliberate manipulation.
The search carried a bounty of $36,864, offered since 2023 by engineer Filippo Valsorda and other contributors. It will go to the Internet Security Research Group, the nonprofit behind Let’s Encrypt.
Earlier efforts had failed. Researcher Steve Weis filed public-records requests in 2018, and NIST said it had no documentation. NSA mathematician Jerry Solinas, who supplied the seeds, died earlier in 2023.
What it means for Bitcoin
Bitcoin does not use the NIST curves. It uses secp256k1, a curve defined by two small, fixed numbers that leave little room to hide a weakness.
Satoshi Nakamoto never publicly explained the choice. Ethereum later adopted the same curve.
Ledger co-founder Nicolas Bacca reacted with “checkmate Satoshi.” Blockstream CEO Adam Back pushed back and blamed the NSA for not explaining its choices.
Claude found no weakness in Bitcoin, and its cryptography remains secure against known practical attacks. Quantum computing is a separate long-term concern.
Google said this week its Willow chip cut errors about 40-fold in one of the costliest steps a quantum machine would need. No computer yet exists that is large or reliable enough to crack a bitcoin key.
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