A lot of people lost Bitcoin this week. 1,367 BTC. Roughly $88.6 million, drained from 4,585 Coldcard addresses across three waves. The sweeps are still running. First, the practical part. If your keys were generated on affected Coldcard firmware, move your coins now. To a fresh wallet from a safe device, or yes, even to an exchange. Nobody should shame you for that. An exchange is a fine place to stand while the building is on fire. Emergency exits and long term storage are two different problems. Solve the emergency first. Second, the honest part, because people deserve some honesty this week. The folks who lost funds did everything we told them to do. Buy the hardware wallet. Write down the seed. Lock it away. Trust no one. They followed the playbook perfectly, and a single firmware bug from 2021 quietly made their "random" keys guessable. Coins that sat untouched for over three years, gone in minutes. That is not a user failure. That is a failure of the model this industry sold them: one device, one seed, one point of failure. We all repeated it. Myself included. I sit on calls with Bitcoin holders every week, and I will not pretend any custody model is risk free. @OnrampBitcoin has tradeoffs too. You are trusting institutions and process instead of a device in your safe, and for some people that is the wrong trade. But once the emergency is over and the question becomes "where does this sit for the next 20 years," here is what new and prospective clients ask us, and the honest answers: "How does multi-institution custody actually work?" Three independent regulated institutions each generate their own key, in their own environment. Moving Bitcoin requires any 2 of 3. No single party, including Onramp, ever sees or assembles the full set. A firmware flaw or failure at any one institution cannot reach your coins. "Is that enforced on chain, or is it just company policy?" Native Bitcoin multisig, enforced by the protocol itself. Every account is its own segregated on chain vault you can verify independently, 24/7. "Are my coins pooled on your balance sheet?" No. Your vault is titled to you. No commingling, no rehypothecation. "Can I get my Bitcoin out if Onramp disappears?" Yes, by design. You hold recovery documentation with step by step instructions to transact with the two remaining institutions, without our participation. The structure is built to survive the collapse of any one keyholder. Including us. "Does my family need to be technical if something happens to me?" No seed phrases for your heirs. No device in a safe deposit box. No 12 words that die with you. "What does it cost to start?" Zero. The Onramp Finance tier is free, and you can move into Multi-Institution Custody when you are ready. No device to buy, no firmware to track. If you are affected this week, get safe first. Then, when you are thinking about the long term again, ask hard questions of anyone who wants to hold your keys. Including us. That is what the questions above are for. Links in the reply below.
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