Bitcoin climbed back above $64,000 after a sell-off tied to concerns over the Coldcard hardware wallet hack, with short-term holders swinging from heavy selling to net buying. Long-term holders kept booking profit and spot flows leaned toward selling, even as U.S. ETF demand stayed strong. Galaxy Research separately put total losses from the Coldcard breach above $100 million.
Bitcoin climbed back above $64,000 in the early hours of Tuesday. The asset had tumbled from a high of $65,409 to $62,466 on July 31, then slid further on August 1.
Much of the bearish mood traced to concerns over the Coldcard hardware wallet hack, in which attackers exploited a firmware flaw to reconstruct vulnerable wallet seeds without accessing the physical devices.
Short-term holders flip from selling to buying
Short-term holders, those holding Bitcoin for fewer than 155 days, led the early selling. Axel Adler's STH profit/loss-to-exchange metric showed a cumulative outflow of -7,336.40 BTC, worth roughly $468.31 million, sold since the start of August.
But the latest reading, from August 3, shows net purchases of roughly 3,150.66 BTC — a sharp turn from the -7,551.09 and -2,935.97 BTC net figures logged on August 1 and 2.
Long-term holders keep selling as ratio hits a high
Long-term holders, who hold for more than 155 days, share part of the blame too. The LTH-SOPR to STH-SOPR ratio has climbed to roughly 0.9355, a fresh high built up since July 21, signaling heavier selling from investors who typically hold through volatility.
Spot flows favor profit-taking while ETF demand holds up
Traders leaned into profit-taking as Bitcoin rebounded. Spot netflow stood at a positive $105.7 million at the time of writing, a sign selling outpaced buying over the past 24 hours, with positive netflow now holding for 15 straight days.
Meanwhile, US spot Bitcoin ETFs pulled in $170.09 million on August 3, pulling the outlook in a more bullish direction.
Coldcard breach behind the sell-off tops $100 million
Coldcard-related thefts have exceeded $100 million, according to Galaxy Research, which traced the losses to a firmware flaw introduced in March 2021. The firm identified 1,596 BTC stolen from about 7,300 addresses across three confirmed attack waves, with a suspected fourth wave that could push the total to roughly 2,055 BTC, though Galaxy has not confirmed those additional losses.
David Schwartz, Ripple's CTO Emeritus, compared the breach with the 2011 collapse of MF Global, writing that "there were many brokerages that lost customer stock holdings in the 1970's". He added that Coldcard owners whose funds were stolen currently have no comparable insurance or recovery mechanism available to customers of regulated financial firms.
Coinkite, the wallet's maker, says a firmware update alone cannot fix the flaw: owners on the affected versions must generate a new seed and move their funds to stay protected.
Sources: AMBCrypto, crypto.news
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