Cardano Founder Hoskinson Warns BIP-361 Could Freeze 1.7M Bitcoin

Gate News message, April 17 — Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson recently warned that the proposed Bitcoin BIP-361 upgrade, designed to protect against quantum computing threats, has been incorrectly classified as a soft fork when it is actually a hard fork, according to comments made to CoinDesk.

Hoskinson argued that if BIP-361 were implemented, approximately 1.7 million BTC created before 2013 would be permanently frozen, including 1 million BTC held by anonymous Bitcoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto. He claimed that owners of these early-issued coins cannot provide proof of ownership because they predate the introduction of seed phrases, making it impossible to transfer them.

The warning comes as the cryptocurrency sector intensifies efforts to address quantum computing risks following Google's quantum threat report in late March. Beyond Bitcoin, other projects including Dogecoin (DOGE) and Tron (TRX) have begun testing quantum-resistant technology.