> Many, many, very smart people have worked on exactly this problem

If I applied this logic to anything genuinely new that was ever discovered, then nothing genuinely new would ever be discovered. I don't know what the fallacy there is, but it must be one.

Modern example: Many, many, MANY people worked on globally disparate data synchronization (consensus) problems (Raft, Paxos were some solutions), while ensuring their security, and then Bitcoin came along. Bitcoin hasn't been hacked (although its exchanges have).

I'm just saying my gut says there's more to discover there.