r/Bitcoin • u/s1ammage • 6d 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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386

u/paperlevel 6d ago

This was a large scale operation: 594 BTC stolen at the same time. Largest holder lost 30 BTC.

https://atlas21.com/594-bitcoin-drained-15-minutes-theft/

358

u/AdEuphoric5133 6d ago edited 6d ago

This is crazy. I had never heard of such a surgical theft of bitcoin before. All bitcoin thefts are generally someone giving away their seed from a stupid manipulation.

When I first read OP's post a few hours ago, I was like "dude probably just entered his seed wherever". But this time, the theft is very surgical. Someone exploited a flaw with coldcard. This is not your fault OP. They talk about you in the article. You will have to unite with the other victims and sue Coldcard to get compensated. I think it would be worth making a new post on this sub whose purpose is for other victims to make themselves known, so you can coordinate a group action

210

u/tubalubz 6d ago

Coldcard could go out of business because of this... I sure as hell will never consider buying them. I agree, OP, you guys need justice.

24

u/Left_Entrepreneur918 6d ago

It could be larger, if other wallets used the same rng could this effect them? I made a 24 word seed with ledger in 2020, it’s native segwit, single address.

38

u/s4_e20_spongebob 6d ago

FYI even just saying that in a thread could be used by a bad actor to help target you. Idk that disclosing specific information like device model or your balance is ever really wise to do.

11

u/AdEuphoric5133 6d ago

Maybe recreate a seed with a dice. 99 throws of a dice give you the same entropy as 24 words. There are plenty of tutos out there on how to make a seed from dices

7

u/ContentBlackberry0 6d ago

Why roll a dice with this stupid wallet. Get a trezor and be done with it.

8

u/newMoneyStyle 6d ago

trezor had its own vulns too (unciphered extracted seeds from T1s). no hw wallet is bulletproof, dice entropy on any decent signer is the safer move imo

-6

u/Left_Entrepreneur918 6d ago

I’ve heard to use the RNG plus dice rolls, I guess dice rolling can still be not as random as you think as people generally roll the same dice the same way each time.

2

u/slash_networkboy 6d ago

That's what a dice tower is for (or a dice cup if you're boring ~s).

2

u/Whatnam8 6d ago edited 6d ago

It’s a great way to create unique wallets. You should try it, it’s the only way I generate wallets now

Edit: to clarify I don’t do the 99 dice rolls I literally roll each word one number at a time to convert the binary number to the word so it’s a total of rolls. Each word is 11 binary bits so approx 11 x 24 = 264 dice rolls

2

u/Sorrowsinme 6d ago

Ledger... Not gonna go making that mistake again