Charles Hoskinson Says 34% of Bitcoin Could Be Stolen by Quantum Computers in 2030s
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Charles Hoskinson used a lengthy video address this week to deliver what he described as a long overdue reckoning for Bitcoin maximalists, centred on a quantum computing threat he says is no longer theoretical and a proposed fix he says does not actually work.
As of March 1, 2026, over 34% of all Bitcoin has had its public key exposed on-chain, either through address reuse or legacy pay-to-public-key-hash formats. That represents approximately 8 million Bitcoin that could be stolen by an attacker with a sufficiently powerful quantum computer. Based on current research timelines, Hoskinson places that threat arriving in the 2030s.
“Not hypothetically one magical day in the future when unicorns fart rainbows,” he said. “In the 2030s. Right in front of your face.”
The Proposal That Does Not Solve the Problem
A Bitcoin Improvement Proposal currently circulating, BIP-361, attempts to address the vulnerability by freezing quantum-vulnerable funds and forcing a migration to post-quantum addresses. Hoskinson spent considerable time dissecting why he believes it fails on its own terms.
The proposal claims to be a soft fork. Hoskinson says it is not. It would require a hard fork, something Bitcoin has never done and, by the religion of its maximalist community, never will.
More critically, the proposed zero-knowledge proof recovery system only works for wallets built on the BIP-39 seed phrase standard, which was not introduced until 2013. Approximately 1.7 million Bitcoin, including an estimated 1.1 million belonging to Satoshi Nakamoto, exist in legacy wallet formats that predate this standard. There is no zero-knowledge proof that can recover those coins.
“1.7 million coins cannot be saved even under the steal your coins proposal,” Hoskinson said bluntly.
The Uncomfortable Logic
Hoskinson acknowledged the proposal is not without merit. The developers who wrote it understand the stakes. If nothing is done, those 8 million Bitcoin will be stolen and dumped onto the market in the 2030s, representing 8% to 10% of the entire supply hitting exchanges simultaneously.
“I understand why they wrote it,” he said. “Because if they don’t do this, that money will be stolen in the 2030s. That’s a fact.”
The problem is the governance structure that would be needed to execute it. Cardano, Polkadot and Tezos all have on-chain governance mechanisms that allow the community to vote on protocol changes in a structured way. Bitcoin does not. Every attempt to introduce meaningful upgrades has been fought off in the name of immutability.
“If you had on-chain governance you could solve it,” Hoskinson said. “We have it at Cardano. But we’re shitcoiners. We don’t have good ideas.”
The Institutional Wildcard
Hoskinson ended with a scenario that will unsettle Bitcoin holders who celebrated institutional adoption. BlackRock, MicroStrategy and the US government are now significant Bitcoin holders. All three have fiduciary or political obligations to protect the value of their holdings.
If 10% of the Bitcoin supply faces quantum theft in the 2030s, those institutions will not sit quietly. They have the resources and the incentive to push through a hard fork whether the Bitcoin community wants one or not.
“Do you think BlackRock is going to have a problem stealing 1.7 million Bitcoin from people and forcing a hard fork?” he asked. “You welcomed them in with open arms.”
The community that spent fifteen years resisting change to protect decentralisation may find that the institutions it embraced are the ones who ultimately force the change anyway.
Filed under: Bitcoin - @ April 16, 2026 3:21 am