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

Earlier this week, Bitcoin's core developers proposed a plan to protect 8 million coins from quantum attacks. However, according to Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson, this plan is still insufficient to safeguard the coins belonging to the network's creator, Satoshi Nakamoto. In a recent video, Hoskinson expressed his concerns that the proposed defense against quantum computers is both technically incorrect and structurally flawed, making it incapable of protecting the network's oldest coins. He argued 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 due to its invalidation of existing signature schemes. Hoskinson emphasized that a hard fork is necessary to implement this change, which contradicts Bitcoin's development culture that has historically opposed hard forks. The BIP-361 proposal suggests that users with frozen funds could reclaim them by creating a zero-knowledge proof tied to their BIP-39 seed phrase. However, Hoskinson pointed out that this approach is inadequate for rescuing approximately 1.7 million bitcoin that predate the introduction of BIP-39 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 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 reservations about the proposal, describing it as a rough idea for a contingency plan rather than a finalized specification. Hoskinson's criticism extends beyond the technical aspects, arguing that Bitcoin's lack of formal on-chain governance hinders the network's ability to resolve tradeoffs through a structured process, leading to contentious upgrades being negotiated through developer mailing lists and social pressure.