'Move your funds now' says CEO after Coldcard exploit
Coldcard's wallet flaw drains $38 million in bitcoin and shakes faith in self-custody. IBM's CEO says quantum computing is almost a business. And three things standing between crypto and its next bull run.
A firmware vulnerability in Coldcard hardware wallets — among the most respected self-custody devices in Bitcoin — was exploited to drain roughly 594 BTC worth about $38 million in a 25-minute sweep, sending shockwaves through the self-custody community. The flaw involves weak entropy during seed generation: an attacker who knows the pattern can recompute private keys without ever touching the device. Coinkite co-founder NVK issued an urgent warning — "move your funds now" — and shipped a hotfix protecting new seeds, but stressed it does not fix keys already generated on vulnerable firmware. Trezor's CTO put it bluntly: "Weak entropy during initialization = funds drained remotely. No device access needed." The community reaction was visceral, with some calling it worse than Mt. Gox because it strikes at the very bitcoiners who did everything right — studied the protocol, bought hardware wallets, took self-custody seriously. NVK attributed the discovery speed to AI-assisted code review: "AI-assisted code review can now find latent bugs at a speed that is outpacing even the industry's most seasoned experts." Bitcoin fell 3% as the scope of the vulnerability became clear, and some commentators are already predicting a shift of self-custody holdouts toward ETFs and insured custodial solutions.
The only NYSE-listed crypto exchange, regulated by NYDFS, HKSFC, Bafin, and GFSC. Built for institutional trading, on the infrastructure regulated markets require.
One global order book, open 24/7, serving institutions in 50+ jurisdictions, with deep liquidity that holds in volatile markets.
Top 3 for BTC and ETH volume among the exchanges in the CME CF benchmarks. (CoinDesk Data)
Not investment advice. Digital assets and related products are high risk. Visit bullish.com/legal for more important information and risk warnings.
IBM CEO Arvind Krishna told CNBC that quantum computing is on track to begin generating meaningful revenue by 2028 or 2029, and that by the end of the 2030s the sector represents a potential $1 trillion in value. The comments come as IBM, Alphabet, IonQ, Rigetti, and a wave of startups race to build machines capable of solving problems intractable for classical computers — from molecular simulation and drug discovery to logistics optimization and materials science. Unlike AI's reliance on GPU clusters, quantum computing requires entirely different hardware and purpose-built facilities. IBM backed its confidence with action: it's building a standalone quantum chip foundry with $1 billion committed from the U.S. Department of Commerce and a matching $1 billion from the company itself. The technology has crypto implications too — a sufficiently advanced quantum computer could theoretically threaten Bitcoin wallet encryption, though most experts say that scenario is still years away and blockchain networks will have time to upgrade to quantum-resistant cryptography before it becomes a real risk.
STS Digital CEO Maxime Seiler says three forces are holding bitcoin back despite record institutional blockchain adoption: institutional options selling, capital rotating into AI, and stalled U.S. crypto legislation. The surge in institutions selling options has created a reflexive loop that compresses implied and realized volatility, trapping bitcoin in a tight range and capping the kind of outsized rallies that defined previous cycles. Meanwhile, AI has become the dominant growth narrative, drawing both attention and capital away from digital assets. And the failure of the Clarity Act to advance before the Senate's August recess has left regulatory uncertainty intact. Ironically, Seiler notes that much of Wall Street's blockchain adoption — banks and exchanges upgrading to 24/7 settlement and clearing — is accruing value to incumbent financial institutions rather than to token holders. He expects a meaningful rally will require regulatory clarity, broader 24/7 market infrastructure, and a more supportive macro backdrop, with rate cuts or renewed monetary easing as a likely catalyst.
