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

Earlier this week, Bitcoin's core developers proposed a plan to protect 8 million coins from quantum attacks by freezing them. However, according to Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson, this plan is still incapable of saving the coins belonging to the network's creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, as stated in a video posted on his YouTube channel. Hoskinson believes that the proposed defense against quantum computers is not only mislabeled but also structurally flawed, particularly in its inability to safeguard the network's oldest coins, which include the roughly 1 million bitcoin attributed to Satoshi Nakamoto. He argues that BIP-361, a proposal aimed at phasing out quantum-vulnerable bitcoin addresses, is being misrepresented as a soft fork when, in reality, it would require a hard fork due to its invalidation of existing signature schemes that users currently rely on. Hoskinson emphasized, 'To actually do this, you need a hard fork.' This distinction is crucial because Bitcoin's development culture has historically opposed hard forks, viewing them as violations of the network's immutability. The authors of BIP-361 have described the proposal as a soft fork, a characterization that Hoskinson disputes. A soft fork is a change that tightens the rules, allowing old software to still work but not utilize new features, whereas a hard fork is a fundamental change that renders old software obsolete and can cause the network to split unless all users upgrade. BIP-361 suggests that users with frozen quantum-vulnerable funds could reclaim them by creating a zero-knowledge proof tied to their BIP-39 seed phrase. However, Hoskinson argues that this approach is ineffective for approximately 1.7 million bitcoin that predate BIP-39's introduction in 2013, including the roughly 1 million coins associated with Satoshi's early mining activity. These early coins were generated using a different key derivation method from the original Bitcoin wallet software, which relied on a local key pool rather than a deterministic seed. If the proposal passes in its current form, those coins would remain permanently frozen, regardless of whether their original owners attempt to migrate, because migration would require cryptographic proof they are unable to provide. Jameson Lopp, the core developer who co-authored BIP-361, has expressed his dislike for the proposal and hopes it never needs to be adopted, describing it as 'a rough idea for a contingency plan' rather than a finalized specification. Lopp argues that freezing dormant coins, estimated at 5.6 million bitcoin, would be preferable to allowing a future quantum attacker to recover and dump them on the market. 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 these tradeoffs through a structured process, forcing contentious upgrades to be negotiated through developer mailing lists and social pressure.