Cardano Founder Disputes Bitcoin's Quantum Solution, Claims it Won't Protect Satoshi's Coins

Earlier this week, Bitcoin's core developers suggested freezing 8 million coins as a defense mechanism against quantum attacks. However, Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson expressed his concerns in a YouTube video, stating that this solution would still not be able to protect the network's oldest coins, including Satoshi Nakamoto's approximately 1 million Bitcoin. Hoskinson argued that BIP-361, a proposal to phase out quantum-vulnerable Bitcoin addresses, is being misleadingly presented as a soft fork when it would actually require a hard fork, as it would invalidate existing signature schemes. He emphasized that the distinction between a soft and hard fork is crucial, given Bitcoin's historical opposition to hard forks due to their perceived violation of the network's immutability. 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. Nevertheless, Hoskinson claimed that this approach would be ineffective for approximately 1.7 million Bitcoin that predate the introduction of BIP-39 in 2013, including those associated with Satoshi's early mining activities. These early coins were generated using a different key derivation method, which relied on a local key pool rather than a deterministic seed. Consequently, if the proposal is implemented in its current form, those coins would remain permanently frozen, regardless of whether their original owners attempt to migrate. Jameson Lopp, the core developer who co-authored BIP-361, has acknowledged that he does not like the proposal and hopes it will never be adopted, describing it as a rough idea for a contingency plan rather than a finalized specification. Lopp estimates that freezing dormant coins, which he believes to be around 5.6 million Bitcoin, would be 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, forcing contentious upgrades to be negotiated through developer mailing lists and social pressure.