zlacker

Even if this twitter link is a hoax, I've always assumed as much: the decision to go with a previously unknown Elliptic Curve (secp256k1) is especially suspicious.

Even the description of the curve on the bitcoin wiki, "Most commonly-used curves have a random structure, but secp256k1 was constructed in a special non-random way" should ring alarm bells.

Even with "not up my sleeve numbers", for any given parameter, there are so many sleeves, that a parallel reconstruction of "not up my sleeve numbers" are entirely possible, much like the "interesting number" paradox, if every number is interesting, then every number also has a reason for why it shouldn't be considered suspicious.

>>xnorsw+(OP)
The flipside is, which alarm bells should be rung? At the time there was not much concern over the other more popular curves being backdoored, and now there is. Some people have switched curves because they saw Bitcoin use another curve. Maybe that was it. The alarm bells were possibly already rung.