Charles Hoskinson Disputes Bitcoin's Quantum Solution, Claims It Fails to Protect Satoshi's Holdings

Earlier this week, Bitcoin's core developers proposed a solution to protect against quantum attacks by freezing 8 million coins. However, Charles Hoskinson, the founder of Cardano, expressed his doubts about the effectiveness of this plan in safeguarding the network's oldest coins, including those belonging to Satoshi Nakamoto, in a video posted on his YouTube channel. Hoskinson argued that the proposed defense, BIP-361, is technically flawed and would require a hard fork, rather than a soft fork as claimed, due to its impact on existing signature schemes. He emphasized that this distinction is crucial, given Bitcoin's historical opposition to hard forks. The BIP-361 proposal suggests using zero-knowledge proofs tied to BIP-39 seed phrases to reclaim frozen funds, but Hoskinson pointed out that this approach would not work for approximately 1.7 million bitcoins created before 2013, including those associated with Satoshi's early mining activities. These 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 co-author of BIP-361, has expressed his own reservations about the proposal, describing it as 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 such tradeoffs through a structured process, leading to contentious upgrades being negotiated through informal channels.