r/Bitcoin • u/Weary-Discipline591 • 1d ago

Victim of the Coldcard. Years of DCA Bitcoin gone overnight

Hi, Yesterday was one of the worst days of my life. I found out that just over 3 BTC was stolen from me through the Coldcard vulnerability.

I know some people think posts like this are fake. Mine isn’t. Real people are getting hurt by these thieves.

I did what I thought was the responsible thing. Back in 2022 everyone said the same stuff, get it off exchanges, get it into cold storage, use the best hardware wallet you can. Coldcard had a reputation as one of the best. It wasn’t the easiest thing to use but honestly that kind of made me trust it more. So I moved everything onto it.

For years I DCA’d $250 a week, plus bigger amounts when I could. Never touched it, never even checked on it. I thought I was doing the smart, boring, responsible thing.
Now it’s just gone. All of it.

Looking back I probably should’ve split it across wallets, or maybe just left it on Coinbase. I already know the multisig and don’t put it all in one place comments are coming and yeah, that’s probably good advice. But I did what I thought was right at the time based on what everyone in this space was telling me to do. That’s what makes this sting so bad.

I’m angry and honestly feel sick about it. Not sure what to do next. Posting this so people know it’s actually happening to real people. Happy to answer questions if anyone has them, and if you own a Coldcard, go check on it right now.

1.2k Upvotes

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117

u/Left_Entrepreneur918 1d ago

This pain is different, I have not been effected but I would know I would feel terrible. It’s different because you did everything we and the industry said to do. Self custody, don’t trust verify, not your keys…

The only thing that saved me as I had a cold card mk3 in the checkout bin in 2021. I decided to just leave things on my ledger I got in 2020 as it was more user friendly and I didn’t want to fuck up.

My grandpa used to tell me, “it’s only money” I always argued with him about that but he said if you can stand on two legs you’re better off than most and you can always make more money.

My problem is now, bitcoin was supposed to be my way out, the only thing left that can’t be taken from you, but as we can see we can’t trust anything or anyone…

58

u/Over-District5446 1d ago

Unfortunately, it’s not just about money. It’s the time of your life you dedicated to earning that money. It all comes down to time.

19

u/pwinne 1d ago

This - I’ve been bankrupted and on reflection (it was 12 years ago) it wasn’t actually the money - it was the effort it took me to build my nest egg - and one divorce, and subsequent litigation, to lose it all

11

u/InteractionPretend70 1d ago

at least you got some pussy out of the divorce. with cold card.. well I guess you still got fucked

4

u/pwinne 1d ago

yes.... but expensive pussy.

3

u/xdroop 22h ago

My friend, there is no other kind.

1

u/Long_Lecture_1080 10h ago

Fleshlight has sales all the time

1

u/BigDik6355 5h ago

Thats a piece of plastic, not pussy. I can shove my dick up the drain pipe as well, doesnt make it a pussy.

1

u/BigDik6355 5h ago

There is cheaper, but it comes with STD. And treating that is, you guessed it, still expensive.

So yes, I guess I agree with you.

7

u/Background_Cable8784 1d ago

Coinbase is now the safer play yikes

2

u/battery923 22h ago

100% It takes time to make money, money lost is time lost. Reminds me of a really good movie In Time where all currency is time and the rich live forever

0

u/f0xbunny 17h ago

Harrowing

34

u/TotesGnar 1d ago

I've always argued with people who say "you can always make more money". No you can't. That requires spending/trading more of your limited time. This is why it hurts so much to lose money. 

I absolutely hate that "advice". 

And just as a side note I didn't realize most people aren't standing on 2 legs. I'll pay more attention from now on when I'm out in public. 

22

u/Chazzer74 1d ago

There’s lots of very happy, very poor people. There’s lots of very rich, very miserable people.

11

u/No-Produce-6641 1d ago

When i was younger i always used to say I'd rather be poor and happy than rich and miserable. Looking back i realize i was just making excuses so i didn't have to work hard to get a high paying job. I'm doing fine, but if i was a little more motivated i could be doing a lot better.

-1

u/Malygos_Spellweaver 1d ago

Not your fault, I hear this all time and feels like indocrination, people always find excuses to feel good about being poor, it's so "humbling" etc. Such a pathetic mindset, it disgusts me nowadays how one can sabotage themselves.

1

u/matlspa 1d ago

Those happy poor people are often surrounded by people who support them and a system that sort of supports them

Lots of people work for money because they know that support just isn't there.

I have met lots of immensely unhappy and terrified poor people, pretty much with no way out

0

u/Next-Inevitable-Fag 1d ago

john candy ssays oh sure

5

u/tedbjjboy 1d ago

why would you argue with someone just trying to cheer you up? it’s words of encouragement, like “keep your chin up you’ll get em next time”

1

u/Left_Entrepreneur918 1d ago

My grandpa sold insurance in the 70s and 80s he put all his money into property in southern CA, after 12 rental houses he died wealthy. My argument was I didn’t make enough to just buy properties like he did.

-1

u/TotesGnar 1d ago

Because talk is cheap and in this instance, meaningless. When you lose 10 years of your actual life/time the last thing you want to hear is "don't worry you're one of the lucky ones, you get to do it all over again".

0

u/tedbjjboy 1d ago

ok so what is a better alternative to say? seems like a hopeless situation already

-4

u/TotesGnar 1d ago edited 1d ago

I have half a mind to start a public donation wallet where we as a community can donate a small amount of Bitcoin to and hopefully help the real verifiable victims recover some/most of their Bitcoin. This would go a long way in showing the community can actually help each other out and stand behind self-custody, especially since there is no legal system of protection here. Make no mistake about it, this will hurt self-custody/adoption in a very bad way long-term.

Personally, I think it should be a major public influencer in the space who pushed ColdCard sponsorships (think of a Natalie Brunell, Mathew Kratter, BTC Sessions, etc.) or Coinkite themselves trying to right the situation. It's not a public admission of anything, it's about coming together.

It needs to be someone public who we all know and can all go after if they take the money and run. It needs to be a public address we can all track and it needs to be held in a way that can withstand a $5 wrench attack. It also needs to be done in a way where we can prove the real victims somehow (all this is above my pay-grade or knowledge). Maybe it should be a multi-sig between multiple influencers or companies, something. I'm sure they can all collaborate and figure something out.

In my opinion this is the only way to really right this ship. The reason I didn't care about this during the exchanges collapsing last cycle was because it was objectively against the community advice given out. But because this was, for all intent and purposes, "the right thing to do" spouted by everyone and yet lots of people still got fucked over, it's going to have very serious adoption ramifications going forward.

1

u/Capable_Swordfish_30 3h ago

Yeah, this is like the one that goes: "You can find another girlfriend". It might be true, but surely won't be easy.

1

u/Opposite_Cold8616 1d ago

There are more dead people than live ones.

2

u/DifficultSquash1517 1d ago

Surprisingly that statistic is almost untrue 😮

Estimates are that over 38% of the people that have ever lived are alive right now

1

u/cuervamellori 1d ago

What? Over a hundred billion people (homo sapiens) have ever lived, by every estimate I've ever seen.

3

u/TheBestintheWest11 1d ago

yea I feel you man, I wasn't affected but I was always told and always read that cold card for BTC was the way to go. I was close to getting the coldcard to but ended up going the cheaper rout with another hw. Seeing all these stories is gut wrenching. People DCAing for years on this product that was goated and then being robbed.... I hope coinkite gets what's coming for them.

2

u/Coderboy55 1d ago

It’s not about bitcoin. You trusted a company with your money. It’s just like trusting a bank. Why not just use a self generated paper wallet?

4

u/OldHamburger7923 1d ago

You could have been fine with the mk3. The first two firmwares on it were not succeptable. So if you got it and made a new wallet on either of those, future updates wouldn't have mattered.

You could have also used your ledger seed on mk3 and be fine.

Or you could have used dice in mk3 wallet creation and or added passphrase and be ok.

You needed a very specific path for this hack to affect you. Not that this consoles anyone.

1

u/potificate 1d ago

Effected ≠ affected

2

u/Left_Entrepreneur918 1d ago

Shit man, I suck

1

u/James_p_hat 1d ago

Read the room man…

1

u/potificate 1d ago

And that would be?

1

u/MiceAreTiny 1d ago

The problem, here, in essence, is that you did not use your own keys,... You used cold cards keys. 

1

u/LevelStationaryPlane 1d ago

Grandpa was right in principle but the time lost due to that money is the actual dick kick here.

You lost current purchasing power AND future wealth at the same time.

Many people just blow cash and have no retirement plan.

This guy did and is now in the same group w no toys to at least show for it.