I think you're missing the implication here. Until now, an attacker could go after Bitcoin by using superior technology to compute hashes faster than everyone else. But now, these new companies are using the best technology available. There is no superior technology that would allow the NSA or any other single attacker to compete with 28nm ASICs produced in commercial volumes.
Once 28nm bitcoin ASICs are widely distributed, the bitcoin network will be safe from a 51% attack even from governments.
All I need to assert is there will never be any radically superior technology that is accessible to the NSA long before it is accessible to commercial bitcoin miners, and I think that's plausible. The NSA doesn't innovate in semiconductor fabrication, Intel and TSMC do. The only way the NSA could plausibly gain a significant hash rate advantage over commercial bitcoin miners is by breaking SHA-256, which has nothing to do with hardware.
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I think you're missing the implication here. Until now, an attacker could go after Bitcoin by using superior technology to compute hashes faster than everyone else. But now, these new companies are using the best technology available. There is no superior technology that would allow the NSA or any other single attacker to compete with 28nm ASICs produced in commercial volumes.
Once 28nm bitcoin ASICs are widely distributed, the bitcoin network will be safe from a 51% attack even from governments.
I think you need to assert that there never will be any superior technology...
All I need to assert is there will never be any radically superior technology that is accessible to the NSA long before it is accessible to commercial bitcoin miners, and I think that's plausible. The NSA doesn't innovate in semiconductor fabrication, Intel and TSMC do. The only way the NSA could plausibly gain a significant hash rate advantage over commercial bitcoin miners is by breaking SHA-256, which has nothing to do with hardware.