Charles Hoskinson of Cardano Claims Bitcoin's Quantum Solution is a Hard Fork That Cannot Protect Satoshi's Coins

Earlier this week, Bitcoin's core developers proposed freezing 8 million coins to defend against quantum attacks. However, according to a recent video posted by Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson, this solution will still not be able to protect the coins belonging to the network's pseudonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto. Hoskinson believes that Bitcoin's proposed defense against quantum computers is both mislabeled and structurally incapable of safeguarding the network's oldest coins, including the roughly 1 million bitcoin attributed to Satoshi Nakamoto. He claims that BIP-361, the proposal to phase out quantum-vulnerable bitcoin addresses, would functionally require a hard fork because it invalidates existing signature schemes that users are actively relying on. A hard fork is necessary to implement this change, Hoskinson said, which is a significant distinction given Bitcoin's historical opposition to hard forks. The proposal suggests that users with frozen quantum-vulnerable funds could reclaim them by constructing a zero-knowledge proof tied to their BIP-39 seed phrase. However, Hoskinson argues that this approach will not be able to 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 and will remain permanently frozen if the proposal passes in its current form. Jameson Lopp, the core developer who co-authored BIP-361, has acknowledged that the proposal is not ideal and hopes it never needs to be adopted. Hoskinson's 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.