Bitcoin quantum upgrade governance sits at the centre of Charles Hoskinson’s latest provocation: that Bitcoin’s coordination model, not its cryptography, is the real vulnerability when quantum computing eventually forces a migration. Speaking in an interview with The Starting Block published on 24 July, Hoskinson described Bitcoin as ‘frozen in time’ and argued that a sufficiently powerful quantum computer could expose the network’s inability to act quickly enough.
What BIP-361 Actually Proposes
Bitcoin developers are not standing still. BIP-361, published in April 2026 by Jameson Lopp and five co-authors including Pierre-Luc Dallaire-Demers and Christian Papathanasiou, lays out a structured three-phase migration away from ECDSA and Schnorr signatures. It builds on BIP-360, which introduces a quantum-resistant output type called Pay-to-Merkle-Root (P2MR).
Phase A stops new funds from going into quantum-vulnerable addresses. Phase B, triggered roughly two years after Phase A and approximately five years after BIP-360 activation, disables legacy signature verification at the consensus layer, freezing any unmigrated coins. Phase C would allow recovery of frozen funds via zero-knowledge proofs linked to BIP-39 seed phrases, but that component requires further research and has no determined timeline.
The exposure at stake is not abstract. PostQuantum.com’s analysis of Bitcoin’s PQC migration puts approximately 6.7 million BTC in addresses that would be frozen if owners fail to migrate during Phase A, covering legacy addresses whose public keys are already visible on-chain.
The same analysis notes that the NSA’s CNSA 2.0 framework mandates post-quantum cryptography across all networking equipment by 2030 and explicitly requires hybrid schemes during the transition. For Bitcoin, that would mean pairing an existing Schnorr or ECDSA signature with a post-quantum signature such as ML-DSA, so the system stays secure if either primitive is independently compromised.
The standards side has its own complications. NIST finalised its first three post-quantum cryptography standards on 13 August 2024: ML-KEM, ML-DSA, and SLH-DSA, specified in FIPS 203, 204, and 205. Those remain intact. However, on 28 July 2026, NIST confirmed that an Anthropic AI model had discovered a vulnerability in HAWK, a lattice-based signature algorithm under consideration for standardisation. The HAWK development team withdrew it. NIST was clear that its already-finalised standards are unaffected, but the episode illustrates how rapidly the cryptographic assumptions underpinning any migration can shift.
Bitcoin has no formal on-chain voting body to respond to that kind of development. Developers propose code; node operators, miners, exchanges and wallet providers decide whether to run it. The process is deliberate by design, since broad off-chain consensus is part of Bitcoin’s security model. Whether that model can move fast enough on quantum resistance is precisely Hoskinson’s question, though he offered no timeline for when a capable quantum computer might actually arrive.
Cardano’s Governance Record Under the Plomin Hard Fork
Hoskinson’s argument rests on Cardano’s formal on-chain governance as a structural advantage. The Plomin hard fork was ratified on 24 January 2025 after the three thresholds required for a hard fork action during the interim governance period were met, and enacted on 29 January 2025 at 21:45 UTC (epoch 537, protocol version 10.0). It was the first community-driven hard fork in Cardano’s history, completing the Conway governance era under CIP-1694.
ADA holders can now vote directly or delegate to representatives known as DReps. Stake pool operators and a constitutional committee participate in selected decisions. Hard forks and treasury withdrawals are approved on-chain. Hoskinson argues that structure gives Cardano a clearer route to approving a quantum-resistant migration.
The caveat is that formal voting and approved migration are different things. Cardano delegates rejected or challenged several proposals linked to Hoskinson and Input Output during 2026, including a funding request that covered research into Leios scaling and quantum-resistant cryptography. Governance machinery does not guarantee that a founder-backed plan passes.
Bitcoin Quantum Upgrade Governance: Where Both Networks Actually Stand
Hoskinson also repeated his claim that the forthcoming Ouroboros Leios upgrade would make Cardano ‘60 times faster.’ That figure is his estimate; teams are still integrating the Leios prototype with Cardano node software, and the upgrade requires its own governance approval. The recent van Rossem hard fork shows DReps, stake pool operators and the constitutional committee can coordinate, but Leios is a more complex change.
Neither network has deployed a complete post-quantum transaction system. Bitcoin developers are designing migration paths; Cardano is funding research and building the governance tools to approve one. The practical test arrives when cryptographers finalise a secure design and communities must move users and funds without splitting the chain. That question, not Hoskinson’s interview, will settle the bitcoin quantum upgrade governance debate.
