HARDWARE SECURITY

Coldcard Firmware Flaw Cut Seed Entropy to 40 Bits, Enabling a $70M Bitcoin Sweep in 41 Minutes

A March 2021 build-config error routed Coldcard seed generation to MicroPython's deterministic Yasmarang PRNG instead of the STM32 hardware RNG, cutting effective entropy to roughly 40 bits on Mk3 and 72 bits on later models.

Matt Lucas  |  August 2, 2026  |  6 min
Editorial hero illustration
$70.2M
BTC drained in one sweep
41 min
Time to empty 1,196 addresses
40 bits
Mk3 effective seed entropy vs 128
5 years
Flaw shipping since March 2021
TL;DR
  • What: A build-configuration error in Coldcard firmware, introduced in March 2021, silently routed BIP-39 seed generation to MicroPython's deterministic Yasmarang PRNG instead of the STM32 hardware RNG.

On July 30, 2026, a single attacker drained 1,196 Bitcoin addresses in 41 minutes, moving 1,082.65 BTC worth roughly $70.2 million at the time. Galaxy Research mapped the sweep and tied it to a firmware defect in Coldcard, the Bitcoin-only hardware wallet built by Canadian firm Coinkite. The flaw had been shipping since March 2021.

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