Coldcard Hack Sends Plebs Into a Frenzy — 39,600 BTC Shuffled in 24 Hours 🔐

A suspected hack targeting Coldcard hardware wallets triggered a wave of small Bitcoin transfers on Friday, with 39,600 BTC moved in a single day — the highest daily volume of sub-1 BTC transfers since November 2022, according to CryptoQuant head of research Julio Moreno. The figure came within 300 BTC of the 39,900 BTC transferred on Nov. 16, 2022, days after FTX filed for bankruptcy. "The Bitcoin plebs had not moved this amount of BTC in a day since the FTX collapse," Moreno said on Saturday, adding that he was encouraged to see users "taking action."

Galaxy Research, the research arm of crypto investment company Galaxy Digital, reported Saturday that the latest identified attack wave drained an additional 207.7 BTC, worth about $13.2 million, bringing estimated losses to 1,367 BTC ($88.6 million) across 4,585 addresses. The suspected Coldcard hack first surfaced in late July and appeared to remain active at the time of publication. Alex Thorn, Galaxy Digital's head of firmwide research, warned in an X post on Sunday that the attack was still ongoing and urged users to move funds from Coldcard-generated addresses immediately if they had not already done so, noting that his team continued to identify new victim and attacker addresses.

The incident has reignited debate over Bitcoin self-custody, a core principle of crypto that allows users to control their funds without relying on third parties. Nick Neuman, CEO of Bitcoin security company Casa, pushed back against claims that "self-custody is over," arguing that its distributed nature gave users time to react. He estimated that potentially 10 times more Bitcoin was protected through self-custody than was stolen and identified in the attack so far. Eric Balchunas, senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg, countered that Bitcoin exchange-traded funds provide a safer and more convenient alternative for many users, pointing to the long operating history of the ETF industry.

Others in the crypto community pushed back against Balchunas, saying the Coldcard incident reflected a failure of one wallet provider rather than a failure of self-custody itself. As the investigation continues, the episode stands as one of the most significant stress tests for individual Bitcoin custody since the collapse of major centralized platforms.