Cardano Founder Disputes Bitcoin's Quantum Computing Solution, Claims It Won't Protect Satoshi's Coins

The Bitcoin development team has proposed a solution to protect against quantum attacks by freezing 8 million coins. However, according to Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson, this plan will not be able to rescue the coins belonging to the network's creator, Satoshi Nakamoto. Hoskinson claims that the proposed solution, BIP-361, is technically incorrect and will not be able to protect the network's oldest coins, including the 1 million bitcoin attributed to Satoshi. He argues that BIP-361 is being misrepresented as a soft fork, when in reality it would require a hard fork, which would invalidate existing signature schemes. A hard fork would be necessary to implement this solution, which contradicts Bitcoin's development culture that has historically opposed hard forks. The BIP-361 proposal suggests that users with frozen funds could reclaim them by creating a zero-knowledge proof tied to their BIP-39 seed phrase. However, Hoskinson argues that this approach will not work for approximately 1.7 million bitcoin that were created before 2013, including those associated with Satoshi's early mining activity. These coins were generated using a different key derivation method and would remain permanently frozen if the proposal passes in its current form. Jameson Lopp, the core developer who co-authored BIP-361, has acknowledged that the proposal is not ideal and hopes it will never be needed. Hoskinson's criticism extends beyond the technical details, arguing that Bitcoin's lack of formal on-chain governance makes it difficult to resolve tradeoffs and negotiate upgrades.