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

Charles Hoskinson, founder of Cardano, has expressed concerns that Bitcoin's proposed defense against quantum computers is both technically flawed and incapable of protecting the network's oldest coins, including those attributed to Satoshi Nakamoto. He argues that the proposal, BIP-361, is being mislabeled as a soft fork when it would actually require a hard fork, which would invalidate existing signature schemes. This approach, according to Hoskinson, cannot rescue the roughly 1.7 million bitcoin that predate 2013, including Satoshi's holdings, as they were generated using a different key derivation method. The proposal suggests that users with frozen funds could reclaim them by constructing a zero-knowledge proof tied to their BIP-39 seed phrase, but Hoskinson claims this method is insufficient for the older coins. Jameson Lopp, the core developer who co-authored BIP-361, has acknowledged that the proposal is not ideal and hopes it will never need to be adopted. Hoskinson's critique extends beyond the technical details, arguing that Bitcoin's lack of formal on-chain governance makes it difficult to resolve tradeoffs through a structured process, leading to contentious upgrades being negotiated through developer mailing lists and social pressure.