Hoskinson warns Bitcoin faces quantum threat as 34% of BTC exposed on-chain and up to 8 million BTC could be stolen in the 2030s; critiques BIP-361 and governance hurdles

Charles Hoskinson used a lengthy video address this week to argue that Bitcoin maximalists face a long-overdue reckoning over a quantum computing threat he says is no longer theoretical, along with a proposed fix he believes does not work as intended.

As of March 1, 2026, Hoskinson said more than 34% of all Bitcoin has had its public key exposed on-chain, through address reuse or legacy pay-to-public-key-hash formats. He estimated that this equates to roughly 8 million Bitcoin that could be stolen by an attacker with sufficiently powerful quantum computing, with the risk arriving in the 2030s.

Hoskinson framed the timeline as imminent rather than speculative, saying the threat is “in the 2030s” and “right in front of your face.”

The proposal that does not solve the problem

Hoskinson focused on Bitcoin Improvement Proposal BIP-361, which he said aims to address the vulnerability by freezing quantum-vulnerable funds and forcing a migration to post-quantum addresses.

He argued that the proposal would not function as described. While BIP-361 is presented as a soft fork, Hoskinson said it would require a hard fork—something he said Bitcoin has never done and that, in the view of its maximalist community, will not be done.

He also said the proposed zero-knowledge proof recovery system would only work for wallets built on the BIP-39 seed phrase standard, introduced in 2013. Hoskinson estimated that approximately 1.7 million Bitcoin—including about 1.1 million attributed to Satoshi Nakamoto—exist in legacy wallet formats predating BIP-39, and he said there is no zero-knowledge proof recovery method for those coins.

“1.7 million coins cannot be saved even under the steal your coins proposal,” Hoskinson said.

The uncomfortable logic

Hoskinson acknowledged that the proposal has merit in terms of intent. He said the developers understand the stakes: if no action is taken, he expects the 8 million Bitcoin identified as quantum-vulnerable to be stolen and then dumped onto the market in the 2030s.

He estimated that this could amount to 8% to 10% of the total Bitcoin supply hitting exchanges at the same time.

He said, “I understand why they wrote it,” adding that without it, the theft in the 2030s is “a fact.”

Governance and execution constraints

Hoskinson’s central critique was that Bitcoin lacks the governance structure needed to implement the change. He contrasted Bitcoin with networks that have on-chain governance mechanisms, citing Cardano, Polkadot and Tezos, where communities can vote on protocol changes in a structured way.

He said Bitcoin does not have on-chain governance and that attempts to introduce meaningful upgrades have been resisted in the name of immutability.

“If you had on-chain governance you could solve it,” Hoskinson said. He added that Bitcoin’s community is resistant to change and that other networks have implemented governance mechanisms that Bitcoin does not.

Institutional wildcard

Hoskinson ended with a scenario he said could unsettle Bitcoin holders who have welcomed institutional participation. He pointed to BlackRock, MicroStrategy and the US government as significant Bitcoin holders, arguing that their fiduciary or political obligations would create incentives to protect the value of their holdings.

He said that if 10% of the Bitcoin supply faces quantum theft in the 2030s, those institutions would likely push for a hard fork even if the broader Bitcoin community opposes it.

“Do you think BlackRock is going to have a problem stealing 1.7 million Bitcoin from people and forcing a hard fork?” he asked, adding that the community “welcomed them in with open arms.”

Hoskinson concluded that the community that spent years resisting change to protect decentralisation may ultimately find that the institutions it embraced are the ones forcing the change anyway.