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

Earlier this week, Bitcoin's core developers proposed a plan to freeze 8 million coins to protect against quantum attacks. However, according to Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson, this plan is still insufficient to save the coins belonging to the network's creator, Satoshi Nakamoto. Hoskinson argues that the proposed defense, known as BIP-361, is both technically incorrect and structurally unable to safeguard the network's oldest coins, which include the approximately 1 million bitcoin attributed to Satoshi Nakamoto. He claims that BIP-361, which aims 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 that users are currently relying on. A hard fork is necessary, according to Hoskinson, because it changes the rules so fundamentally that old software stops working entirely and the network splits unless everyone upgrades. The BIP-361 proposal 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 disputes this approach, stating that it cannot rescue the 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. As a result, if the proposal passes in its current form, those coins would remain permanently frozen, regardless of whether their original owners ever 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 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 would be preferable to allowing a future quantum attacker to recover and dump them on the market. Hoskinson's broader critique extends beyond the technical details, arguing that Bitcoin's lack of formal on-chain governance leaves the network unable to resolve these tradeoffs through a structured process, forcing contentious upgrades to be negotiated through developer mailing lists and social pressure.