Bitcoin Holds Around $64,000 After $116M Coldcard Wallet Exploit

Bitcoin is steady near $64,000 despite a string of negative headlines that, under normal conditions, would likely have pushed prices lower. The past week featured a Coldcard hardware wallet exploit tied to more than $116 million in theft, renewed selling activity disclosed by Strategy, and waning momentum for the Clarity Act in Washington. Coldcard losses have continued to mount since the vulnerability came to light on July 30, with multiple drain waves hitting affected wallets. In the latest episode, a fourth wave moved 388.9 BTC in a single Sunday evening—about $29 million. The exploit traces back to a firmware bug dating to March 2021 that impacted certain devices made by Canadian manufacturer Coinkite. The flaw caused some wallets to generate recovery seeds with roughly 40 bits of entropy instead of 128, leaving longterm holders exposed to brute-force sweeps. Bitcoin.com News published a detailed accounting of confirmed losses and wallets that may still be at risk. The attack remains active and is now being monitored publicly. Bitcoin developer James O'Beirne launched a live dashboard to map the thefts, using "tripwire" unspent transaction outputs (UTXOs) created from the broken default seeds with varying levels of added entropy. The most alarming datapoint: his control wallet with no added entropy was swept within an hour, suggesting attackers are continuously scanning the vulnerable seed space. Coinkite said it has paused shipments and destroyed remaining inventory manufactured with the vulnerable firmware. In a customer message, the company wrote: "Money that took years to save, gone. Trust that took years to build, broken." Coinkite urged users of affected devices to move funds to new wallets immediately, warning that a firmware update by itself does not eliminate risk. Separate from the Coldcard episode, Strategy disclosed it sold 1,638 BTC for about $104.7 million—its third sale of the year. Wallets linked to the company also moved another 1,030 BTC on Wednesday, feeding market concern about a potential fourth sale. Strategy still has $5 billion in authorized sales capacity remaining. On the policy front, the Clarity Act appears headed for a failed cloture vote after Senate Democrats balked amid ethics discussions. Prediction market Polymarket also marked down expectations: odds of the bill becoming law in 2026 fell from 27% to 23% as of today. Even with the headlines, bitcoin has not broken lower, continuing to trade around $64,000—well below recent highs but notably resilient. Bulls are also pointing to a valuation reference from Capriole Investments founder Charles Edwards, who highlighted bitcoin's production cost—miners' all-in cost to produce one coin—at about $54,000, with the electricity component around $40,000. Historically, bitcoin has traded below production cost at cycle bottoms, implying the current $64,000 level still sits at a premium, though the implied floor is more clearly defined. Exchange inflows rose as Coldcard users moved coins amid the scare. With the Clarity Act vote still looming this week ahead of the August recess, traders are bracing for another potential headline shock that could unsettle prices again.