Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson used one of his most divisive videos in recent memory to argue that Bitcoin’s long-standing resistance to structural change has exposed it to the threat of quantum computing that is now surfacing in the debate around BIP 361. His main assertion was direct: Bitcoin’s governance culture, not just its cryptography, is now the problem.
In the livestream titled “BIP 361: Welcome to ShitcoinLand, Bitcoin,” Hoskinson framed the proposal as a belated admission from parts of the Bitcoin world that quantum risk is no longer theoretical. The Cardano founder highlighted language in the proposal stating that as of March 1, 2026, more than 34% of all Bitcoins had revealed public keys on-chain, leaving these UTXOs vulnerable to theft by an attacker with a sufficiently powerful quantum computer. According to him, this represents approximately 8 million BTC exposed to a future breakout in Bitcoin’s current signature assumptions.
BIP-361 proposes to freeze every bitcoin that does not migrate to a quantum-secure address within five years of activation. If you are incapacitated, in jail, or simply ignore the deadline, your coins will not be stolen. They are frozen by consensus.
The justification: 34% of all… pic.twitter.com/4ValsZTdQD
-TFTC (@TFTC21) April 15, 2026
Cardano Founder Attacks Bitcoin Developer Community
Hoskinson’s attack centered on two related claims. First, he argued that the response implied by BIP 361 would require a hard fork, even if described otherwise. Second, he said any forced migration to post-quantum addresses would create a deeper problem for coins held in older wallet formats that cannot be recovered through the type of proof system he imagines in the proposal.
“There is some truth here,” Hoskinson said. “As of March 1, 2026, more than 34% of all Bitcoins have revealed a public key on-chain…these UTXOs could be stolen by an attacker with a sufficiently powerful quantum computer. 34% of all Bitcoins are vulnerable. About 8 million Bitcoins, give or take.”
This is where the heart of his criticism lies. According to Hoskinson, Bitcoin developers are now stuck between two bad outcomes: either leaving existing coins vulnerable to theft in the 2030s, or forcing a migration that renders a large portion of older coins effectively unusable. He has repeatedly claimed that approximately 1.7 million BTC falls into the latter category, including approximately 1.1 million BTC he attributed to Satoshi Nakamoto, because they predate wallet standards and seed phrase systems that would make later recovery models possible.
“Users with frozen vulnerable quantum funds and an HD wallet seed phrase can construct a safe quantum proof to recover funds,” he said, paraphrasing the idea before dismissing it. “That’s a lie. And you know it. You know it. 1.7 million coins can’t do that. It’s not possible.”
Hoskinson then expanded the argument beyond BIP 361 itself and into a broader critique of Bitcoin’s social structure. Maximalist ideology, he says, has turned a software system into a doctrine, making it much more difficult to adapt when technical compromises become inevitable. He argued that the industry had spent years rejecting alternative chains and governance models, only to arrive at a time when Bitcoin might need exactly the kind of coordinated protocol change that he has long described as unacceptable.
“What happened there will only be 21 million coins and self-custody and Bitcoin never needs to change and everything is perfect?” he asked. “Because it’s not a bad proposal. It’s really not. I understand why they wrote it. Because if they don’t do it, this money will be stolen in the 2030s.”
This tension gave its structure to the video. The founder of Cardano did not claim that the quantum threat was imaginary. Quite the contrary. He treated it as real and potentially serious. But he said the proposed remedy exposes a contradiction at the center of Bitcoin culture: Once any part of the supply becomes vulnerable, any meaningful solution runs directly into questions of confiscation, coordination and legitimacy.
He compared this to networks such as Cardano, Polkadot and Ethereum, arguing that formal governance systems provide at least a mechanism for resolving disputes over upgrades and trade-offs. “If you had on-chain governance, you could solve it,” he said. “We have it in Cardano. Polkadot has it… it’s a good idea.”
At press time, Cardano was trading at $0.2499.
Featured image from YouTube, chart from TradingView.com
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