Cardano Founder Disputes Bitcoin's Quantum Solution, Claims It Won't Protect Early Coins

Recently, Bitcoin's core developers have suggested freezing approximately 8 million coins as a defense mechanism against potential quantum attacks. However, according to Cardano's Charles Hoskinson, this solution would still be insufficient to protect 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 solution, BIP-361, is being misleadingly labeled as a soft fork when it would, in fact, require a hard fork due to its impact on existing signature schemes. He argues that this distinction is crucial, given Bitcoin's historical aversion to hard forks. Furthermore, Hoskinson claims that the proposed zero-knowledge recovery plan would be ineffective in rescuing roughly 1.7 million pre-2013 bitcoins, including those associated with Satoshi, due to the different key derivation method used in the original Bitcoin wallet software. This would render these coins permanently frozen, even if their owners attempted to migrate them. The debate surrounding BIP-361 has sparked a discussion about the need for a more formal on-chain governance process in Bitcoin, with Hoskinson suggesting that the current lack of such a process hinders the network's ability to navigate contentious upgrades and tradeoffs.