Hacker News story: Bitcoin is a bounty designed to force the US Gov to reveal SHA256 is insecure

Bitcoin is a bounty designed to force the US Gov to reveal SHA256 is insecure
In reading about Bitcoin and its precursor Hashcoin, I realized that just as Hashcoin is designed to disincentivize spam, Bitcoin has a similar aim. Rather than mining digital "postage stamps" to send e-mail, the creators of Bitcoin were concerned about a bigger problem--the freedom of the internet. Their solution was to create a huge bounty of cash so large that it would disrupt the economy and the ability of the government to levy taxes. That is why the consortium chose SHA256 as the hashing algorithm. It is the same algorithm used to secure the internet. The purpose of Bitcoin is to eventually force the US government to reveal it has the power to crack SHA256, which cost the government billions in research dollars, and gives the government tremendous power. Bitcoin was designed as a bounty to disincentivize the government from continuing to monitor all activity on the Web unchecked. What else would a group of hackers want more than to create a bounty to secure the internet? When the government does this, Bitcoin will no longer have value, but the government will also have revealed a huge secret and tech companies will be forced to adopt more secure protocols. If we assume the cost of breaking SHA256 is the same as the cost of the Manhattan project, inflation adjusted to 2008 dollars--$21 billion--then you know why the blockchain is capped at 21 million coins. TL:DR: Bitcoin was created as a huge bounty to force the government to reveal it can crack SHA256, with the ultimate purpose of securing privacy on the internet. 2 comments on Hacker News.
In reading about Bitcoin and its precursor Hashcoin, I realized that just as Hashcoin is designed to disincentivize spam, Bitcoin has a similar aim. Rather than mining digital "postage stamps" to send e-mail, the creators of Bitcoin were concerned about a bigger problem--the freedom of the internet. Their solution was to create a huge bounty of cash so large that it would disrupt the economy and the ability of the government to levy taxes. That is why the consortium chose SHA256 as the hashing algorithm. It is the same algorithm used to secure the internet. The purpose of Bitcoin is to eventually force the US government to reveal it has the power to crack SHA256, which cost the government billions in research dollars, and gives the government tremendous power. Bitcoin was designed as a bounty to disincentivize the government from continuing to monitor all activity on the Web unchecked. What else would a group of hackers want more than to create a bounty to secure the internet? When the government does this, Bitcoin will no longer have value, but the government will also have revealed a huge secret and tech companies will be forced to adopt more secure protocols. If we assume the cost of breaking SHA256 is the same as the cost of the Manhattan project, inflation adjusted to 2008 dollars--$21 billion--then you know why the blockchain is capped at 21 million coins. TL:DR: Bitcoin was created as a huge bounty to force the government to reveal it can crack SHA256, with the ultimate purpose of securing privacy on the internet.