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

Earlier this week, Bitcoin's core developers suggested freezing 8 million coins to counter quantum attacks. However, Charles Hoskinson, the founder of Cardano, believes this approach is still insufficient to protect coins belonging to Satoshi Nakamoto, as stated in a video on his YouTube channel. Hoskinson argues that the proposed defense mechanism against quantum computers is both technically incorrect and structurally incapable of safeguarding the network's oldest coins, including the approximately 1 million bitcoin attributed to Satoshi Nakamoto. He claims that BIP-361, a proposal aimed at phasing out quantum-vulnerable bitcoin addresses, is being misleadingly presented as a soft fork when it would actually require a hard fork due to its invalidation of existing signature schemes. Hoskinson emphasized that a hard fork is necessary to implement this change, which is a significant distinction given Bitcoin's historical opposition to hard forks. Furthermore, he criticizes the proposal's reliance on zero-knowledge proofs tied to BIP-39 seed phrases, arguing that this approach cannot recover 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 behind BIP-361, has expressed his own reservations about the proposal, describing it as a rough contingency plan rather than a finalized specification. Hoskinson's critique 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.