Charles Hoskinson, founder of the Cardano network, has publicly stated that the proposed quantum defense for the Bitcoin network suffers from an inappropriate technical term and functional shortcomings. The crucial point that most media outlets forget is that around 1.7 million Bitcoins could be unrecoverable regardless of how developers vote. This controversy comes at a time of increasingly bullish expectations for the price of Bitcoin.
In a video posted to his YouTube channel Wednesday evening, Hoskinson analyzed BIP-361, the proposal by developer Jameson Loeb and others to phase out Bitcoin addresses vulnerable to quantum attacks. He explained that BIP-361 is being marketed as a “soft fork” but would functionally require a “hard fork” because it would invalidate current signature schemes that active users currently rely on.
“To actually do this, you need a hard fork” Hoskinson said frankly.
Hoskinson called the proposal’s characterization of “soft division” a lie. It is worth noting that Bitcoin’s development culture has historically viewed hard forks as a violation of the network’s immutability, making the political ramifications no less important than the technical ramifications. The debate over quantum security has intensified in the industry in recent months.
The deeper problem lies in the recovery mechanism; BIP-361 suggests that users whose frozen funds are vulnerable to quantum attacks can recover them via a zero-knowledge proof linked to the BIP-39 seed phrase. According to Hoskinson, approximately 1.7 million bitcoins, including approximately 1 million coins attributed to Satoshi Nakamoto, predate the introduction of BIP-39 in 2013. So there is no BIP-39 starting statement for these wallets.
Based on this analysis, the path to recovery via zero knowledge simply does not apply to them. According to this analysis, Satoshi coins are structurally non-tradable under the current proposal, regardless of how the split is resolved.
Bitcoin Price Prediction: Target $250,000 Whether Split Happens or Not
Hoskinson’s doubts about the governance of the Bitcoin protocol have not affected his outlook on the price. He publicly predicted that the price of Bitcoin would reach $250,000 by mid-2026, which would represent a 3x increase from current levels. I attribute this to institutional inflows, the integration of large technology companies (Magnificent 7), the upcoming Clarity Act, and continued growth in end users. He reiterated these predictions in an interview with Bloomberg during the TOKEN2049 conference in Singapore.
Technically, Bitcoin’s current position just below $74,000 reflects a significant recovery from the bottom below $66,000 due to fears of regional conflict. Earlier this month, the high hit $73,000; But Bitcoin has now convincingly surpassed that level, with analysts continuing to raise their price predictions as economic headwinds ease.
The quantity debate remains an unknown factor that current price models do not accurately take into account. If the BIP-361 proposal fails or forces a complete split, short-term volatility is the almost certain result.
Bitcoin is facing a split and Hyper is here to fix it
Bitcoin’s limitations are precisely what is fueling the current belief in the importance of layer 2 solutions. To return to the $120,000 levels and beyond, Bitcoin’s rally requires institutional scale, as the huge asymmetric returns that retail traders saw from buying Bitcoin directly in the early days have largely faded.
The Bitcoin Hyper ($HYPER) project sits just inside this gap. This is the first Layer 2 of Bitcoin to integrate the Solana Virtual Machine (SVM), enabling faster execution of smart contracts than Solana itself while preserving Bitcoin’s fundamental security.
The project has raised $32 million at the current pre-sale price of $0.0136, with staking available with a high annual yield of up to 36%. The core infrastructure includes a decentralized bridge for Bitcoin transfers and ultra-low latency transaction processing, simultaneously solving Bitcoin’s three main bottlenecks: slowness, high fees, and lack of programmability.
The presale has gained considerable momentum as the controversy over the Bitcoin protocol raises questions about the adaptability of the underlying layer.
