Some time ago, at IACAP 2013 conference in Maryland, academic community of philosophers and computer scientists has been introduced to a somewhat intriguing cypherpunk project. In a paper "Man, Machinery and Cryptocoin Avarice", a decentralized monetary system knows as "Bitcoin" has been introduced as an entity which "has all prerequisities to become a new religion for the world where 'death of god' is a widely accepted truth".

In a second contribution addressing the topic, the author introduces the final destination of the Bitcoin project. Starting with the Nieztschean concept of "transvaluation of all values", it will be argued that Bitcoin is not to be perceived as a a sort of eternal goal in itself but only as a temporary proxy within the process of transfer of power from humanity to machines.

More concretely, the first "Pythagorean" pathway towards Bitcoin's demise is to be introduced more closely to the community. Subsequently, the ensuing state of „ontologic anxiety" will be addressed, culminating in the concept of „cold death of Bitcoin".

The Pythagorean path

Not mentioned in any advertisement or other crypto-proselytic pamphlet and thus unbeknowst to majority of investors and users is one simple fact: cryptocurrencies as we know them can function if and only if a mathematical problem known as „Elliptic Curve Discrete Logarithm Problem" (ECDLP) stays unresolved.

We elaborate: based on asymmetric cryptography, security of crypto assets can only be guaranteed if the owner is the only person holding a so-called „private key" which is, in case of Bitcoin a certain number between 1 and 2^256. It is from this private K key that a so-called „public key" P is derived. A public key is contained in signature of every outgoing transaction and provides a proof that the sender indeed knows the private key. Thus, it is this act of „knowing the number" K -- most often represented as a „mnemonic" or a „seed phrase" list of 12, 15 or 24 words -- which constitutes both technical as well as legal claim to ownership of the funds associated with address A which is derived from P.

Now the important part: While the process of derivation of address A from public key P is „messy" and based one human-invented procedure known as „hashing", the more fundamental derivation of public key P from private key K is not man-made.

Far from it: the public key P is ultimately just a coordinate of a „point on elliptic curve" which is obtained when one executes the operation called „scalar multiplication" with another well known point, a so-called generator G. The relation between the two is number-theoretic and - for those adherents of the Pythagorean school which are still unafraid to use such terms in public - divine.

Thus, Bitcoin as we know it works only because certain mathematical structures entities as „finite fields", „elliptic curves of prime order", „abelian groups" etc. have certain properties and not others. More concretely, elliptic curve asymmetric cryptography can only work when the relation between the K and P are one-directional: from K, one can easily derive P, but from P one is unable to derive K. According to the current state of knowledge, the „scalar multiplication" is a sort of „trapdoor function" and as of 2025, there is no publicly known inverse „point division" function which could allow one to divide P with G, thus obtaining K.

This, however, doesn't mean that such function doesn't exist nor that it shall forever stay out of reach of human reason. Indeed, it may be the case that to „crack" the ECDLP for the curve secp256k1 on which Bitcoin is running, one doesn't even need a quantum computer with EC-adjusted version of the Schorr's algorithm. For if Descartes was right with his insight that "There is nothing so far removed from us as to be beyond our reach, or so hidden that we cannot discover it", it is not to be excluded that in order to make the Bitcoin -- and thus the current financial system as a whole -- tumble down like walls of Jericho, one needs nothing else than a 21st century Gauss or Euler savy of the Galois theory and sagemath programming language.

Ontologic anxiety

It was already known to Hume that human tendency to induce general logical propositions from the finite empiric dataset often leads humans into a trap. While it is fairly probable that the Sun will rise tomorrow given that it always did, it is not a logical necessity. And in case of Bitcoin, a human-made proof-of-concept prototype, the Hume's insight applies even more: that BTC hasn't collapsed in 12 years since its conception provides no logical guarantee that it shall not do so sometimes in far or near future.

A common counter-argument to critique hereby introduced is based on so-called „Lindy effect" belief. That is, a belief that „future life expectancy of some non-perishable things, like a technology or an idea, is proportional to their current age". Thus -- so argue the Bitcoin believers --the fact that BTC already survived 12 years provides sufficient evidence that it shall survive another 12 as well, or, all the eternity of humankind, solar system and universe, for that matter.

While such possibility cannot be excluded at this point, we argue that all arguments about Lindy belief as well as about „Bitcoin the king", „the first mover Americas", „the new gold" are nothing but narratives to hide the „ontologic anxiety" of all those who, in that ultimate wager where Pascal meets Pythagoras, made a wrong bet.

The cold death of Bitcoin

What's worse for a slow, 10-minute block confirmation proof-of-work brontosaur like Bitcoin, one doesn't even need to solve ECDLP for the curve secp256k1 curve to bring that particular blockchain into serious trouble. Even a proof that the ECDLP(secp256k1) is solvable -- as it definitely is for multitude other curves -- might cause panic on the markets.

As is well known from theory of non-deterministic systems certain events may lead to convergence to the static attractor state, known as „death". And BTC definitely is such a non-deterministic system: parameters like energy costs, mining difficulty, market sentiment, rice, mempool saturation, block confirmation interval, time to next difficulty adjustment and time to next halving event, amount of tokens wrapped on faster blockchains etc. all play a role in providing guarantee that the planetary network will do what it should: confirm transactions in cca 10 minutes.

As we will show in the full-paper version of this text, the average block confirmation time of 10 minutes is far from granted. And, so we postulate, should minor perturbations become statistically significant -- for example due to sudden price drop caused by Satoshi's wallet waking up or myriad of other psychologic, sociologic or ecologic reasons - it is just a question of time whereby the selfish, greedy, egoist ὕβρις, „tragedy of commons" spirit underlying the current crypto-scene will trigger avalanche of events which shall make first big miners „short their bets on their own horse", pull the plug and ultimately cause long and dark cold death of Bitcoin.