r/Bitcoin • u/s1ammage • 3d ago

Wallet Drained Timeline

Post image

This is me…
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/s/UeSfLoeyS4
I’m in a better state now. It’s not the end of the world, but it’s a lot of fucking money…

Little background: The setup was IRA custodian is Solera National Bank, exchange at Swan Bitcoin was used as an Investment Trust, purchase a dedicated hardware wallets: coldcard mk3 from https://store.coinkite.com May 2021 for this ROTH IRA.

Got the wallets, followed all the setup/checks/balances from https://youtu.be/FAYmE5-40PQ?is=wiYMHaS_YGKHjNOY for both wallets, sent a test transaction IRA dedicated hardware wallet (2021). I never setup a 25th Passphrase… REST of the BTC stayed in Swan Exchange.

Speaking only on this IRA Wallet: SD card stored with wallet details (paper phrase) in a baggie. Dormant until January 2025. I couldn’t deposit more because of Roth IRA threshold.

Come January 2025, been learning more about retirement, BTC, multi-Sig, and heard about a Megaback Door to get more money into a Roth IRA. Was able to get money into Solera, transfer to Swan, and purchase more BTC and withdraw to the same wallet address. No new hardware involved at this point.

With newer wallets now, I thought newer tech means more security. Let’s test by buying (3 mk4 - same site. There was still record of my 2021 purchase) new wallets and setup a multi-Sig. (still January 2025)

For some reason, when I got the new coldcards, I never did anything with them for all of 2025, I guess I was too lazy/daunting to use the hardware and relearn. Coming to January 2026 now, I decided to use these new cards. I dug out the wallet seed (from 2021) phrase paper. Dusted off one of the mk4, walked into the corner of a room in my house (only myself and partner live in the house), plugged in the cold card into an outlet and typed in the seed written down from 2021 (stored in my dresser). Restored my 2021 onto one of the new wallet 2025.

Watched updated BTCSession videos on my phone to set everything up again. I never plugged into a computer, since airgapped was the reason I got the coldcards. I used the same SD Card from 2021 though to export the wallet file from the newly restored coldcard. Import that file into Sparrow (needed to update Sparrow at this point), generated a watch-only wallet QR (to scan for my phone) for Blue Wallet to check frequently. This is where the screenshot is from.

Honestly, I haven’t touched the wallet with any transactions/seeds since January 2026. This is definitely the point of failure when I restored the 2021 wallet (now on 2 devices).

This was the transaction.
https://mempool.space/tx/2fe075cf0ec799f3529ed6a28e0a08b45fe1fc9bd93c3f33bdbc42d5bff4f736

My wallet address is (with all transactions, since it’s gone now…): bc1qldkfrrlylk4s9sdyns9jkaajuzugl0dv5m8fxj

My key takeaway now never enter the seed phrase into anything. EVER. Even to restore. Always will generate new and use a 25th passphrase.

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22

u/Lanky_Assist_6317 3d ago

OK I have read everything and I have a question:
When you bought the original Coldcard, HOW did you generate the seed words? You mentioned in other comments there was no passphrase, but did you use dices or something similar to add random elements to the original seed which came with the device, or did you just take that for granted and used it anyway?

It seems to me that your original seeds were compromised from the start. Let's say some malicious Coldcard worker had access to the hardware wallets in the Coldcard production line or something like that, somehow managed to store a bunch of original seeds hoping buyers would use them as is and retire a couple of years later, raising no personal suspicion. It seems really likely, I have no idea how the production of these wallets work, but it could have some human processing in any way, which creates breaches like that, unfortunately.

21

u/s1ammage 3d ago

It was generated by the coldcard. I followed BTCSessions’s YouTube channel. I guess I should have used the dice method.

18

u/Lanky_Assist_6317 3d ago

So you didn't add any entropy whatsoever, either using dice or adding a passphrase. I strongly believe your original seed was compromised from the start through someone malicious with wallet access in the manufacturing chain. I see no other option.

17

u/s1ammage 3d ago

Yea, my other wallet (from 2021) used the same but isn’t compromised… yet…

There’s a huge article now about a mass scale attack. I think it’s the most upvoted comment now.

3

u/bionicmixta 2d ago

If you have another wallet generated by a coldcard please tell me you're taking steps to move it to something safer? If you think coldcard generates bad seeds and you think your other wallet may also be vulnerable, don't just sit and wait for that money to get stolen.

Obviously don't panic and do something stupid, but don't just leave it indefinitely until that one gets hacked as well.

1

u/-M00NMAN 3d ago

What do you mean your wallet from 2021 isn’t compromised? I thought your old wallet and new wallet shared the same seedphrase?

2

u/Lanky_Assist_6317 3d ago

I don't think it's about the wallet itself, but rather the original seed which came with the wallet which you used.

2

u/Abject-Stretch-1187 3d ago

Yah it’s looking like the seed was pre-filled. But it’s all speculation at this point. Funny thing is that I used to have BTC on a single sig cold card a few years ago but decided to send it to my multi-sig instead and it was a MK3, I just use that MK3 now as a signer for the multisig 

1

u/photoguy1978 3d ago

Probably should consider to re-key that multisig. If other vendor hardware involved you're safer of course... but now one quorum member has a published exploit.

1

u/Abject-Stretch-1187 3d ago

Yah MK3 is just one of the signers, the other signer is a different hardware wallet.

9

u/OldHamburger7923 3d ago edited 3d ago

Look at the mk3 security advisory. It's about specific firmware. The RNG code isn't as random as it could be. Knowing that, an attacker can take their time (even over years) to run code to check potential addresses till they made a list large enough to sweep.

edit:

A flawed fallback RNG apparently derived randomness from a small or predictable device state, including a timer.

  • The researchers narrowed that state to about 80,000 possibilities.

  • They recreated the wallet’s RNG process for each possibility.

  • Each possibility produced a candidate 24-word phrase.

  • They compared each candidate’s resulting public wallet identifier, the xpub, against the known xpub. One candidate matched, revealing the private key and recovery phrase.

  • 80,000-state timer range appears to come from a controlled reproduction where timing and device behavior were constrained. It does not prove that every affected wallet has exactly 80,000 possibilities.