What absolute clickbait nonsense. A typical absolutely piece of trash "article" from CoinTelegraph written by someone who doesn't understand the words they are using.
The headline "Bitcoin’s Elliptic Curve Could Have a Backdoor" is the
exact opposite of what the researcher quoted in the article actually says:
Although the Secp256r1 curve was announced to be randomly selected, there could still exist some suspicion that some backdoor might be secretly set up in the curve parameters. In contrast, the Koblitz curve parameters are mathematically determined, and there is little possibility for setting such a backdoor.
Bitcoin uses the secp256k1 Koblitz curve, not the secp256r1 random curve.
The author also writes the following:
Bitcoin Core developer Wladimir van der Laan told Cointelegraph that he does not know why Satoshi chose this particular curve. He also noted that if someone has discovered a vulnerability, they have not stepped forward to announce it:
“I have no idea why Satoshi chose this particular curve, they have provided no rationale anywhere (it seems, in hindsight, to have been a fairly good choice though). Even if Secp256r1 has a vulnerability, no one has stepped forward yet to announce their discovery.
If that quote is accurate, van der Laan is referring to vulnerabilities in the secp256r1 curve which is not used in bitcoin, not the secp256k1 curve which is used. It seems the author of this article doesn't understand that they are two different things.
0/10. Would not read again.
) secp256r1 curve, and it may well have been a questionable seed value. Maybe someone could make a thread about this, it might be good to clarify this given the time elapsed since then. 
