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

Earlier this week, Bitcoin's core developers suggested freezing 8 million coins to defend against quantum attacks. However, according to Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson, this proposal cannot save the coins belonging to Satoshi Nakamoto, as stated in a video on his YouTube channel. Hoskinson believes that Bitcoin's proposed defense against quantum computers is both technically incorrect and structurally incapable of protecting the network's oldest coins. He claims that BIP-361, which aims to phase out quantum-vulnerable bitcoin addresses, is being misrepresented as a soft fork when it would actually require a hard fork due to its impact on existing signature schemes. A hard fork is necessary to implement this change, Hoskinson said, emphasizing that this distinction is crucial as Bitcoin's development culture has traditionally 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. Nonetheless, Hoskinson argues that this approach is unable to rescue approximately 1.7 million bitcoin that predate BIP-39's introduction in 2013, including the roughly 1 million coins 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 expressed his dissatisfaction with the proposal, describing it as a rough idea for a contingency plan rather than a finalized specification. 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.