The Coldcard Wallet Hack
Bitcoin people like to say the only truly safe place for crypto is offline. Coldcard wallets are built for that. They are hardware wallets, small devices that hold the private keys, the secret codes that prove you own your Bitcoin, without ever touching the internet.
That is why this hack hit so hard. The compromised devices came from Coinkite, one of only a few companies that make this style of wallet. If a wallet made to sit away from the internet can be cracked, then a core promise of Bitcoin deserves a second look.
What Happened at PubKey on Aug. 6
The room featured Rob Hamilton, Alex Thorn, Antoine Poinsot and Matthew Corallo, and the conversation stayed technical. Not everyone in the room was a pro. Jordan White, a crossing guard who hacks in his spare time with DCG 201, said the community has grown far beyond its early small circle.
"We have to remind the community often that this is not just like the way Bitcoin started," White said. "These are people's lives and life savings."
He called the original group "five different dorks" before adding, "It's not even just big businesses. These are people's lives."
The talk kept circling back to the same question: how can technical specialists get people their money back? Alex Thorn, an analyst at Galaxy who helps hack victims, said people who lost a full Bitcoin reached out to him.
Thorn told one story that quieted the room.
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A victim's wife went into labor while the hack was happening. By the time the family came home from the hospital, all their Bitcoin had been drained.
PubKey Opened During the 2022 Downturn
PubKey has seen bad times before. It opened during the crypto downturn in 2022, and Pacchia said the first customers were not exactly celebrating.
"Our very first customers were crying in their beer," he said. "And what we said is you have to come back and throw high fives when we recover from this."
