Quantum Proposal Won’t Save Satoshi’s Bitcoin, Says Cardano Founder Hoskinson

A new Bitcoin improvement proposal called BIP-361 aims to save as much as 34% of Bitcoin’s supply– or more than 7 million coins worth $536 billion – by freezing coins that do not migrate to quantum-proof addresses in the future.

But Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson says as many as 1.7 million coins, or $127 billion worth of BTC, will still remain vulnerable.

The proposal, which would span several years, is divided into three phases, during which older signature schemes on the network would be phased out. First, inflows to vulnerable addresses would be blocked, then old coins would be frozen, with the final stage allowing the recovery of any Bitcoin that had missed the move deadlines.

“That’s a lie,” Hoskinson said of the final phase, claiming that 1.7 million BTC would not be recoverable under the plan. “It’s not possible.”

“You could get some of the 8 million Bitcoin back, but 1.7 million are not covered by this scheme,” Hoskinson said. “All Bitcoins from 2013 and before,” he added, referring to Bitcoin held before the introduction of the key generation. BIP-39which introduced the seed sense.

At least 1.1 million of the coins Hoskinson pointed out are owned by the pseudonymous Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakomotowhose alleged stash is believed to be worth as much as $82 billion, This is evident from data from Arkham Intelligence.

Nevertheless, Hoskinson said: “It’s not a bad proposal.”

“I understand why they wrote it,” he said. “Because if they don’t do this, that money will be stolen in the 1930s. That’s a fact.”

“Q-day,” or the name given to the looming threat at which point quantum computers could break Bitcoin’s cryptography, has become an increasingly relevant topic lately. In March, Google published a Deadline for the transition in 2029 to transform its infrastructure into a “post-quantum cryptography” – a striking sign that the quantum threat is approaching faster than previously expected.

While Hoskinson understood the proposal, the Cardano and Ethereum co-founder was critical of Bitcoin’s community of maximalists who he believes are unwilling to innovate or adopt features embraced by other blockchain communities.

“If you had on-chain governance you could solve it,” Hoskinson said. “We have it at Cardano, Polkadot has it, Tezos has it – it’s a no-brainer.”

“But we’re shitcoiners, we don’t have any good ideas,” he added in a funny tone. “Only you have good ideas.”