It is possible that he had a brain fart. But Musk makes a lot of statements, and he's repeatedly demonstrated that he is the kind of person who wants to project an image of himself that is smarter than he is. There's a trend of people discovering, when he starts speaking in the areas that he's knowledgeable, that he's just a complete idiot making n00b mistakes in their field, and if he's that bad in their area, why not others? Recent entries in this category include programming and playing Diablo, but the conversion factor for me was hearing him talk about tunneling and transit technology. And once you hear him as a fast-talking technobullshitter, it's hard not to treat any future misstatement of him as anything but fast-talking technobullshittery.
But for this claim in particular, there's another element that makes me think the claim was intended to be truthy instead of true. "Bitcoin style encryption" feels like it's meant to be a riff on "military-grade encryption"--a signifier that it's "really good" encryption while being extremely vague on what it is, but using "Bitcoin" instead of "military" to make him seem cooler to the people for whom cryptocurrency references gives you extra credibility.
Even if we assume it's a brain fart for "cryptosystem" or something similar... people with a basic understanding of cryptography recognize that bitcoin isn't using encryption, so a reference to Bitcoin's cryptosystem isn't directly relevant in the first place. To the extent Bitcoin itself uses a cryptosystem, it's the same cryptosystem everybody is using, so the reference itself degenerates "hey, we're using the same algorithms everybody does" which isn't something to tout.
So, no, I don't think it's a brainfart. I think it's a smarter-than-thou bullshitter trying to bullshit his audience, although I'm willing to accept that he may "just" be an idiot repeating what somebody told him without properly understanding what was told to him, leading him to give a confused response.
But for this claim in particular, there's another element that makes me think the claim was intended to be truthy instead of true. "Bitcoin style encryption" feels like it's meant to be a riff on "military-grade encryption"--a signifier that it's "really good" encryption while being extremely vague on what it is, but using "Bitcoin" instead of "military" to make him seem cooler to the people for whom cryptocurrency references gives you extra credibility.
Even if we assume it's a brain fart for "cryptosystem" or something similar... people with a basic understanding of cryptography recognize that bitcoin isn't using encryption, so a reference to Bitcoin's cryptosystem isn't directly relevant in the first place. To the extent Bitcoin itself uses a cryptosystem, it's the same cryptosystem everybody is using, so the reference itself degenerates "hey, we're using the same algorithms everybody does" which isn't something to tout.
So, no, I don't think it's a brainfart. I think it's a smarter-than-thou bullshitter trying to bullshit his audience, although I'm willing to accept that he may "just" be an idiot repeating what somebody told him without properly understanding what was told to him, leading him to give a confused response.