There is always the possibility someone will find a shortcut. secp256k1 has half a dozen that peter wuille implemented in the signature verify, sign and public key derivation. In sum they only manage about 10x but there are many other cases someone eventrually found million anf greater speedups. Shor is the potentially most fast but doesn't work on a digital computer. Not to be saying it is likely but it is far from impossible that another hole is found in elliptic curves.

Military is the reason, obviously. But that also means dull minds and brute force. The entire government thing is a scam. They rob with inflation. The murder. They steal. They extort. Like Rothbard says. Doesn't change the math. Just doesn't make it so likely to happen soon in their labs.