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

Recently, Bitcoin's core developers have proposed a solution to defend against quantum attacks by freezing 8 million coins. However, Charles Hoskinson, the founder of Cardano, expressed his skepticism about this proposal in a video, stating that it cannot protect the network's oldest coins, including those attributed to Satoshi Nakamoto. Hoskinson argued that the proposed BIP-361 is technically mislabeled and structurally incapable of safeguarding the network's oldest coins due to its requirement for a hard fork, which would invalidate existing signature schemes. He also pointed out that the proposal's zero-knowledge recovery plan would not be able to rescue approximately 1.7 million pre-2013 bitcoin, including the roughly 1 million coins associated with Satoshi's early mining activity, as they were generated using a different key derivation method. This would result in these coins remaining permanently frozen, regardless of any attempts to migrate them. Hoskinson's criticism extends beyond the technical aspects, highlighting the lack of formal on-chain governance in Bitcoin, which hinders the network's ability to resolve tradeoffs through a structured process.