Charles Hoskinson Claims Bitcoin's Quantum Solution is a Hard Fork that Fails to Rescue Satoshi's Coins

Earlier this week, Bitcoin's core developers proposed a solution to protect against quantum attacks by freezing 8 million coins. However, Cardano's founder, Charles Hoskinson, believes this approach is still insufficient to safeguard the network's oldest coins, including Satoshi Nakamoto's holdings. In a video posted on his YouTube channel, Hoskinson argued that the proposed defense, BIP-361, is technically flawed and would require a hard fork, which is likely to face opposition from the Bitcoin community. He claimed that the proposal's authors are misrepresenting it as a soft fork, which would not invalidate existing signature schemes. Hoskinson explained that a hard fork is necessary to implement the proposed changes, but this would render old software obsolete and potentially split the network unless all users upgrade. The BIP-361 proposal suggests using zero-knowledge proofs tied to BIP-39 seed phrases to reclaim frozen funds. Nevertheless, Hoskinson pointed out that this method cannot recover approximately 1.7 million bitcoins created before 2013, including those associated with Satoshi's early mining activities. These early coins were generated using a different key derivation method and would remain permanently frozen if the proposal is implemented in its current form. Jameson Lopp, the core developer who co-authored BIP-361, has expressed his reservations about the proposal, describing it as a rough contingency plan rather than a finalized specification. Lopp estimates that 5.6 million dormant bitcoins would be frozen, which he believes is preferable to allowing a future quantum attacker to recover and dump them on the market. 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 developer mailing lists and social pressure.