Fears around Coinkite have spread from its recently compromised Coldcard hardware wallet to Blockclock, a bitcoin display device that some users now suspect could be spying on them.
Protos reported that the Blockclock uses an electro-mechanical display and can be configured to show live bitcoin prices, exchange data, and other metrics. Under normal circumstances it would look harmless. That changed as the fallout from the Coldcard breach kept building.
The report said the Coldcard theft has reached an estimated $130 million and shows no sign of stopping. In that setting, programmer and bitcoin enthusiast Wicked posted a warning that pushed concern around Blockclock into public view.
He told users to unplug the device at once, offering little explanation in the post itself. “Unplug your BLOCKCLOCK immediately. And if you used your COLDCARD near them I would plan to move your funds out of an abundance of caution. Even if you dice rolled or used a passphrase. Breathe and be smart about your migration but this is not a drill. I’ll start up a space soon,” he wrote.
The post, published on August 5, 2026, drew 50,000 views and led multiple Blockclock owners to follow the advice, according to Protos. Suspicion soon expanded beyond the product and onto Coinkite CTO Peter Gray.
Speculation around the device picked up online
Pro-bitcoin vintner Ben Justman said that after learning Gray had worked on keylogging and remote computer viewing, he “wouldn’t feel safe” keeping a Blockclock.
“I don’t own a Blockclock and who knows if there’s anything wrong with them, but I personally wouldn’t wanna touch anything that touched Coinkite,” Justman said.
Other posts floated the idea that Blockclock might contain spyware. A parody account, Teddy Bitcoin, added fuel by claiming the clocks contain “an authentic high-tech Russian military-grade listening device” called the “Ухо-9,” or Ear-9.
The account wrote, “This thing is so advanced it can capture private sounds with insane precision, right down to the exact faint hammering of individual letters into steel plates.”
Not everyone bought the warning. Some users said the reaction looked exaggerated and told Wicked to calm down. Bitcoin Magazine editor Shinobi described the claims as “Schizo theories about Coldcards wirelessly communicating seeds to them to phone home.”
When one commenter asked whether the warning was legitimate, Wicked answered: “No evidence of anything yet but I’m not risking it anymore.”
Wicked later walked part of it back
He later issued a partial apology in an X Spaces, saying he had posted about Blockclock in a “schizo panic fear.” After speaking with several people he trusts, he said, “that fire in my mind has been doused.”
He also said, “My trust in Coinkite products has obviously been affected by all of this.”
By his own later account, the warning was driven by fear rather than confirmed technical findings. At least based on the statements cited by Protos, no direct evidence has been presented publicly that Blockclock contains surveillance features or spyware.
Coldcard’s security crisis remains the core issue
Coinkite is still dealing with the fallout from weaknesses in Coldcard’s seed phrase generation system. Protos said several versions of the BTC wallet were left open to hackers, and the company has urged users to move their bitcoin elsewhere or risk having wallets drained.
The report said at least 15 attackers are exploiting the flaw and have likely targeted thousands of victim wallets. Protos also referenced earlier coverage saying the hacker’s wallet had been flooded with on-chain messages and that 15 attackers were draining vulnerable Coldcard wallets.
Protos said it has reached out to Coinkite for comment and will update the story if it receives a response. No reply had been disclosed at the time of publication.