Charles Hoskinson used a long address this week to deliver what he described as a late reading of Bitcoin maximalists, which focused on the risk of computer overload that he says is no longer a fantasy and that he wants to fix. they say they do not really work.
As of March 1, 2026, more than 34% of all Bitcoin will have exposed its key to the public, either through address reuse or the public-key-hash payment model. This represents approximately 8 million Bitcoins that could be stolen by an attacker with a sufficiently powerful quantum computer. Based on recent research times, Hoskinson puts the risk of reaching the 2030s.
“Not just some magical day in the future when unicorns lose their rainbows,” he said. “In the 2030s. In front of you.”
Ideas That Don’t Solve Problems
A Bitcoin Improvement Proposal currently circulating, BIP-361, attempts to address the threat by freezing the coins at risk and forcing the migration to quantum addresses. Hoskinson spent a lot of time arguing why he believed it failed on its own.
The idea is that it is a soft fork. Hoskinson says not. It would require a hard fork, something that Bitcoin has never done, and, according to the religion of its senior citizens, never will.
Very difficult, the system to support zero-knowledge recovery evidence works only for wallets built on the BIP-39 seed word standard, which was not introduced until 2013. About 1.7 million Bitcoin, including about 1.1 million of Satoshi Nakamoto, are present in the legacy wallet used before this standard. There is zero proof that you will get the money back.
“The $1.7 million can’t be saved even if you steal your money,” Hoskinson said bluntly.
Unpleasant Logic
Hoskinson agreed that the request was reasonable. The developers who wrote it understand the challenges. If nothing is done, 8 million Bitcoins will be stolen and thrown into the market in the year 2030, which represents 8% to 10% of all things that are hit at one time.
He said: “I understand why they wrote this article. Because if they don’t do this, the money will be stolen in the 2030s. This is true.”
The problem is the management system. Cardano, Polkadot and Tezos all have systems to manage the flow of money. Bitcoin is not. Any attempt to introduce meaningful upgrades has been defeated in the name of consistency.
“If you had a chain of command you could handle it,” Hoskinson said. “We have it in Cardano. But we are shitcoiners. We don’t have good ideas.”
The Institutional Wildcard
Hoskinson concluded with what would confuse Bitcoin holders who celebrate institutionalization. BlackRock, MicroStrategy and the US government are now Bitcoin holders. All three have a fiduciary or political responsibility to protect the value of their assets.
If 10% of the supply of Bitcoin faces mass theft in the 2030s, the institutions will not remain silent. They have the resources and motivation to go through a hard fork whether the Bitcoin community wants it or not.
“Do you think BlackRock will have a problem stealing 1.7 million Bitcoin from people and forcing a hard fork?” he asked. “You have welcomed them with open arms.”
Community members who have spent fifteen years resisting change to protect desegregation may find that the institutions they received are the ones forcing change.
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