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Whitehats move 52 bitcoin from the Coldcard hack to a recovery trust
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- DeepHorus
White-hat hackers have successfully recovered and secured 52.37 Bitcoin linked to the devastating Coldcard hardware wallet exploit that occurred in July. The ethical hackers moved the recovered funds to a dedicated address associated with a newly established entity called the Crypto Recovery Trust, as reported by Alex Thorn, Galaxy Digital's Head of Research. The transaction, confirmed in block 967,948, includes an OP_RETURN message directing victims to a recovery website.
The original hack, which began on July 30, involved a vulnerability in the Coldcard firmware that allowed attackers to exploit weak software-based randomness. This flaw led to the generation of predictable wallet seeds, enabling hackers to reconstruct private keys and drain funds. The attack unfolded in multiple waves, resulting in estimated losses exceeding $100 million in Bitcoin.
The 52.37 BTC moved this week represents funds swept by whitehats during Wave 2 of the exploit. Thorn explained that this amount constitutes approximately 2.8% of the total tracked exploit funds, with roughly 40% of Wave 2 activity now identified as white-hat operations. An additional 3.01 BTC with no prior history was also sent to the trust address in the same transaction.
For victims of the hack, a recovery process is now underway. Individuals can visit the website cryptorecoverytrust.com and search for their wallet addresses to determine if any of their lost funds were among those recovered by the ethical hackers. The move highlights the crucial role of white-hat communities in mitigating losses after major security breaches.
While the manufacturer, Coinkite, has patched the firmware flaw, the recovery effort focuses on funds already exposed under the old, vulnerable seeds. This case underscores the persistent risks in cryptocurrency security, even after a technical fix is deployed, and the complex, ongoing effort required to return stolen assets to their rightful owners.
