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

The Bitcoin development team has proposed a plan to protect the network against quantum attacks by freezing 8 million coins. However, according to Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson, this solution is inadequate and won't rescue the network's oldest coins, including those belonging to Satoshi Nakamoto. Hoskinson claims that the proposed solution, known as BIP-361, is being misrepresented as a soft fork when it actually requires a hard fork, which would invalidate existing signature schemes. He also argues that the plan's zero-knowledge recovery method won't work for approximately 1.7 million pre-2013 bitcoins, including Satoshi's coins, because they were generated using a different key derivation method. This means that even if the proposal is adopted, those coins would remain permanently frozen. Hoskinson's criticism extends beyond the technical aspects, highlighting Bitcoin's lack of formal on-chain governance, which makes it difficult to resolve tradeoffs and implement upgrades through a structured process.