Galaxy Research head Alex Thorn said on X that attack activity linked to the Coldcard hardware wallet vulnerability has dropped off noticeably, though cumulative losses continue to climb as additional victim reports surface.
Thorn said the incident has been especially damaging for the Bitcoin community because the affected users were largely long-term BTC holders who embraced self-custody and cold storage, rather than users who lost funds through high-risk trading or DeFi participation.
Galaxy says it has contacted 190 victims
Galaxy Research said it has directly contacted 190 victims and has high confidence that the vulnerability has led to the theft of 1,778.84 BTC from more than 8,600 addresses, worth about $112.7 million based on the figures cited in the post.
Using a $112 million yardstick, Thorn said the incident now ranks among the 20 largest hacks in crypto history and is one of the most severe security failures to date in the hardware-wallet self-custody segment.
Losses could rise to 2,417.35 BTC
The current tally does not include some medium-confidence suspicious attack records, including an unconfirmed 「Wave 4」, according to Thorn. If those potential cases are added, the scale of losses could increase to 2,417.35 BTC, or about $153 million.
Bitcoin security culture may be entering a new phase
Thorn said the episode could push Bitcoin culture into a new phase. In his view, an approach centered only on ideology and aggressive promotion of extreme self-custody is running its course. The community now needs to pay closer attention to technical security, lower the barrier to entry for users, and stop placing security responsibility solely on ordinary users.
He added that the crisis could eventually push the Bitcoin ecosystem toward a more mature security framework.
Multisig wallets are emerging as the relative winners
Galaxy also said the incident is changing how the market views self-custody security. Multisig wallets have emerged as the relative winners in this episode, with no stolen transaction so far traced to a multisig wallet.
Providers including Casa, Unchained, Nunchuk and Anchorwatch have all seen clear increases in user registrations and BTC inflows, according to Galaxy.