After the Coldcard incident, Muneeb’s main point is simple: diversified custody is better than concentrating everything in one setup.
In a piece translated by Baihua Blockchain, he draws three lessons from the episode. They cover how Bitcoin should be stored, how the industry should think about the coming threat from quantum computing, and what needs to change if the BTC ecosystem wants to become healthier over time.
Storage strategy: avoid a single point of exposure
Muneeb says the Coldcard incident is especially unfortunate because the people affected are often not reckless speculators. In his description, they are the ones who put their life savings into Bitcoin, stayed away from high-risk bets, took self-custody seriously, and genuinely saw Bitcoin as the best store of value.
He does not revisit the details of the attack itself, saying others have already done that. His focus is on what comes next. For the future, he argues, the better approach is diversification.
His suggested mix starts with putting 20% to 30% into an exchange-traded fund such as IBIT. Compared with holding coins directly on a trading platform, he says he prefers an ETF for two reasons: the underlying custodians are more distributed, and a regulated ETF can also provide added legal protection.
Another 40% to 50%, he says, could go into a three-key arrangement such as the model used by @CasaHODL. In that setup, one key is held by a security company, one sits on a mobile device, and one is kept on a hardware wallet such as Trezor.
The remaining 20% to 30% could be placed in more sovereignty-focused setups that use hardware wallets from different brands and keys generated from different sources of entropy. He says that route is better suited to advanced users.
His conclusion on custody is blunt: do not put all your eggs in one basket.
Quantum computing: a risk the industry should prepare for
The second lesson is about quantum computing.
Muneeb writes that if quantum computers eventually become capable of breaking current cryptographic systems, what users see may look very similar to BTC suddenly leaving a cold wallet. After this incident, he says, the community now has a vivid sense of that kind of pain and how bad it feels.
He argues that the quantum threat is real and that the time available to act may be down to only a few years. Rather than downplaying advances in quantum computing, he says the safer stance is to be more cautious, especially at a time when large language models are accelerating scientific breakthroughs.
Bitcoin’s security culture: open the door to outside talent
The third point is about the health of the Bitcoin ecosystem itself.
Muneeb says parts of the Bitcoin community have become too closed off in recent years. Many talented security researchers and security companies, he notes, sit outside the “Bitcoin-only” circle. In his view, most people in the industry had not even heard of Coldcard, and top security research firms most likely had not audited its code.
He also says some of the best security talent keeps its distance because it does not want to get pulled into arguments and drama that can come with giving feedback to certain “Bitcoin maximalist” developers. He argues that those self-imposed barriers and that internal friction should end.
From there, he makes a broader case for a more open posture. Bitcoin, he says, should be more welcoming to engineers who do not work exclusively on Bitcoin. He acknowledges that the view will probably draw criticism, but states it anyway.
Engineers working on other crypto protocols are not inherently “evil,” he writes. Some of the strongest engineering talent, especially in security, is outside the Bitcoin world, including firms such as Trail of Bits and Asymmetric Research.
His suggestion is that Bitcoin-focused companies should do more to work with those firms and researchers, build friendlier relationships, and create better audit processes.
He ends with a wider industry point: when Bitcoin gets hurt, the whole crypto industry gets hurt. The answer, in his view, is not ideological gatekeeping but cooperation aimed at a safer future.