Charles Hoskinson Claims Bitcoin's Quantum Solution is a Hard Fork That Cannot Protect Satoshi's Coins

Earlier this week, Bitcoin's core developers proposed a plan to freeze 8 million coins in order to defend against quantum attacks. However, according to a video posted by Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson, this plan is still insufficient to protect the coins belonging to the network's creator, Satoshi Nakamoto. Hoskinson argues that the proposed defense mechanism, BIP-361, is both technically and structurally flawed, and would require a hard fork to be implemented. He claims that this would invalidate existing signature schemes, making it impossible to rescue the roughly 1 million bitcoin attributed to Satoshi Nakamoto. Furthermore, Hoskinson points out that approximately 1.7 million bitcoin, including those associated with Satoshi's early mining activity, would remain permanently frozen due to their reliance on a different key derivation method. This is because the proposal's zero-knowledge proof approach is tied to the BIP-39 seed phrase, which was introduced in 2013, and these early coins were generated using a different method. Hoskinson's criticism extends beyond the technical aspects, arguing that Bitcoin's lack of formal on-chain governance hinders the network's ability to resolve tradeoffs through a structured process, leading to contentious upgrades being negotiated through mailing lists and social pressure.