The Coldcard vulnerability boosts the weekly increase of new Bitcoin addresses by more than 330,000

Comparatively, according to The Block, the number of new Bitcoin addresses climbed from about 260,000 to over 330,000 last week due to wallet migrations caused by the Coldcard vulnerability, reversing the downward trend of most of 2026.

Since July 30, Coinkite hardware wallet users have lost at least 1,816 BTC (approximately $116 million) in four waves of attacks. The vulnerability stemmed from a 2021 firmware flaw — a less secure software random number generator was used to generate mnemonics rather than the device's built-in hardware entropy source, and attackers can violently crack wallets generated offline. Coinkite has recommended that users who generate wallets between March 2021 and the release of the security patch migrate to the new wallet.

This incident highlights the risks of implementing autonomous escrow, and users are re-evaluating the advantages and disadvantages of custodian solutions such as autonomous and centralized exchanges or ETFs.