The Coldcard Mess - Explained Simply I need to be very honest in this post; I am feeling sick to my stomach over what has happened in the Bitcoin space these past days. Going straight to the point, and I will not go too deeply on the technical here so bear with me while I try to summarize and simplify everything. There’s a massive aspect of Bitcoin, which is the self-custody, what that means is basically that you are responsible for managing and “storing” your own Bitcoin, and not counting on a third party to do that, because for that you have banks and Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer asset, therefore the trusted third party should not be involved. That said, holding valuable things comes with a huge responsibility, and in Bitcoin that translates into having a cold wallet, which is a tool that generates the “password” for your coins, and the possibilities of this password, when generated properly are 2²⁵⁶, which results in a number that is bigger than the number of atoms in the universe, so pretty much impossible to crack. There are many brands that sell these wallets, and people trust that once they have it and are able to have their coins safe in these wallets, they shouldn’t worry about any hacks, after all, it is mathematically impossible to crack the 2²⁵⁶ possibilities of passwords. However, among these wallets, there was one that was considered the purest, most hardcore Bitcoiner wallet, which was the Coldcard. Its founder, known as NVK, would praise his wallet and even himself as the absolute pinnacle of security and privacy in Bitcoin, he was very vocal on criticizing any other wallets and would tweet things like “U don’t have to like me to recognize Coldcard is the best wallet”. Basically, all this self-promotion was complete bull crap. Coldcards are being hacked non-stop since July 30th, an error in the product code meant that when generating the “password” instead of using the 2²⁵⁶ possibilities it would generate possibilities as low as 2⁴⁰, it seems like a big number, but comparing the security, the chances of finding the passphrase in the normal setting are equal to finding an olive in the entire universe, for the Coldcard case it’s like finding an olive in a football stadium, which is hard, but not impossible – especially nowadays with AI. What should someone considering investing in Bitcoin or holding Bitcoin do? Never touch a Coldcard, the company is so bad that they are still selling wallets on their webpage which is unbelievable. If you’re going to use a cold wallet to generate your password, make sure that you put a passphrase on top, so it is extra secure and always be alert on what goes on in the Bitcoin universe. Stay humble, stack sats!
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