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

Recently, Bitcoin's core developers proposed a solution to defend against quantum attacks by freezing 8 million coins. However, Charles Hoskinson, the founder of Cardano, expressed his disagreement with this approach in a video, stating that it would not be able to rescue the coins belonging to Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of the network. Hoskinson believes that the proposed solution, known as BIP-361, is technically flawed and would require a hard fork, which would invalidate existing signature schemes used by many users. He argues that this approach is being misleadingly presented as a soft fork. A hard fork would require significant changes to the network's rules, which could lead to a split in the network unless all users upgrade. Furthermore, Hoskinson points out that the proposed solution relies on a zero-knowledge proof tied to the BIP-39 seed phrase, which would not be applicable to approximately 1.7 million bitcoin that predate the introduction of BIP-39 in 2013, including those associated with Satoshi's early mining activity. Jameson Lopp, the core developer who co-authored BIP-361, has acknowledged that the proposal is not ideal and hopes it will never need to be adopted. 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.