Charles Hoskinson: Bitcoin's Quantum Solution is a Hard Fork That Won't Rescue Satoshi's Coins

Earlier this week, Bitcoin's core developers proposed a solution to defend against quantum attacks by freezing 8 million coins. However, according to Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson, this solution is still insufficient to protect the network's oldest coins, including those attributed to Satoshi Nakamoto. Hoskinson stated that the proposed defense, BIP-361, is both technically mislabeled and structurally incapable of safeguarding the network's oldest coins. He argued that BIP-361 would require a hard fork, as it invalidates existing signature schemes, and that the proposal's authors are misrepresenting it as a soft fork. A hard fork would be a significant change to the network, one that Bitcoin's development culture has historically opposed. The proposal suggests using zero-knowledge proofs tied to BIP-39 seed phrases to reclaim frozen funds, but Hoskinson claims this approach cannot rescue approximately 1.7 million bitcoin that predate BIP-39's introduction in 2013, including those associated with Satoshi's early mining activity. These early 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 a finalized specification and hopes it never needs to be adopted. Hoskinson's critique extends beyond the technical details, arguing that Bitcoin's lack of formal on-chain governance hinders the network's ability to resolve tradeoffs through a structured process.