Charles Hoskinson Claims Bitcoin's Quantum Solution is a Hard Fork That Won't Rescue Satoshi's Coins

Earlier this week, Bitcoin's core developers proposed a plan to protect against quantum attacks by freezing 8 million coins. However, according to a video posted by Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson, this plan will not be able to rescue the coins belonging to the network's creator, Satoshi Nakamoto. Hoskinson believes that the proposed defense mechanism is not only mislabeled but also structurally incapable of safeguarding the network's oldest coins, including the roughly 1 million bitcoin attributed to Satoshi Nakamoto. He argues that the proposal, BIP-361, which aims to phase out quantum-vulnerable bitcoin addresses, would functionally require a hard fork because it invalidates existing signature schemes. Hoskinson stated that this approach cannot recover approximately 1.7 million bitcoin that predate the introduction of BIP-39 in 2013, including the 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 dislike for 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 leaves the network unable to resolve tradeoffs through a structured process.