Latest / The Starting Block / Bitcoin rocked by Coldcard exploit w. Freddie New

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Bitcoin rocked by Coldcard exploit w. Freddie New · The Starting Block

0:07
Welcome back to the Starting Block.
0:08
Happy Friday to you, wherever you're
0:10
joining us from this afternoon.
0:11
I promised you that we would have
0:12
Jack Mallers on the show today, but
0:14
unfortunately, he's let us
0:16
know that he's got connection
0:17
difficulties where he is at the
0:19
moment. So we will be rescheduling
0:21
with Jack to have him back on the
0:22
shows on Monday.
0:24
But I phoned my good friend, Freddie
0:26
New from B HODL.
0:27
He has graciously joined us
0:29
for the show and we're gonna be
0:30
chatting about the cold card
0:33
exploits and what that means for
0:35
Bitcoin.
0:36
Right after we do the block briefing
0:37
today. So if you're joining us for
0:38
the first time, welcome to the show.
0:40
My name's Gareth Jenkinson.
0:42
If you haven't ever watched the show
0:43
before, we start off with a block
0:45
briefing, which is a quick rundown
0:47
of the top news you need to know
0:48
from the last 24 hours.
0:50
We have a markets poll segment, and
0:52
then we move into a hot seat segment
0:54
where Freddie will be chatting to us
0:55
about cold card.
0:56
But let's jump straight into the
0:57
headlines of the day so we can get
0:59
to the big story.
1:01
Our first headline, Michael Saylor's
1:03
strategy just posted.
1:04
A staggering $8.2 billion
1:06
loss for the second quarter,
1:08
a dramatic swing from a $10 billion
1:10
profit a year ago.
1:11
The culprit paper losses on
1:13
its massive Bitcoin pile was prices
1:15
down more than 40%
1:17
year over year.
1:18
But here is the twist strategy
1:20
actually grew its holdings 11%,
1:23
peaking near 846,000
1:25
Bitcoin just before hitting pause.
1:27
The company has frozen new purchases
1:29
for five weeks straight to
1:31
build a dollar cash reserve.
1:33
And it sold about $218
1:34
million in Bitcoin this
1:37
year to cover its dividend
1:38
obligations. This all coming from
1:40
their Q2 earnings report that
1:42
they held overnight in
1:45
the US.
1:46
So a big story of the day.
1:48
Then Coinbase beat on growth, but
1:50
the market still flinched.
1:52
Shares fell roughly 7%
1:53
after hours despite a blockbuster
1:56
quarter. They also had their Q-2
1:57
earnings call yesterday.
1:59
Prediction markets were the star
2:00
with contracts and revenue more than
2:02
doubling. Up 106%
2:04
quarter over quarter and topping
2:05
$100 million in annualized revenue.
2:08
The exchange also grabbed a record
2:09
10.3% of global
2:11
crypto trading volume, its third
2:13
straight quarter of market share
2:15
gains. It's all part of Coinbase's
2:17
Everything Exchange push beyond
2:18
trading into prediction markets,
2:20
tokenized stocks and derivatives.
2:22
One year in, it looks like the bet
2:24
is gaining traction, but
2:26
I've seen some interesting takes
2:27
online after that earnings call.
2:28
It's not all rose tinted
2:31
glasses.
2:31
There were a few people calling for
2:33
more from Coinbase.
2:35
We'll have to see how that goes.
2:36
We do have Jesse Pollack
2:38
from Base joining us next week on
2:40
the show. So we'll be diving in a
2:42
little bit with that next week.
2:44
Then prediction market giant Kulshis
2:46
facing a major legal blow in New
2:48
York. Attorney General Letitia James
2:50
has filed suit accusing
2:52
the platform of running an illegal
2:54
gambling operation and seeking court
2:55
order to shut it down in the state
2:57
plus a jaw dropping $36
3:00
billion in damages.
3:02
The complaint says Kalshi let users
3:03
bet on sports, culture and elections
3:05
without a state gaming license and
3:07
expose residents including people
3:09
under the legal gambling age of 21
3:11
to serious financial risk.
3:13
The state also claims Kalsh
3:14
sidestepped the taxes that
3:16
come with it.
3:18
And Stablecoin issuer Circle just
3:19
added another regulatory feather to
3:21
its cap.
3:22
The company secured a limited
3:24
purpose trust charter from New
3:25
York's Department of Financial
3:26
Services cementing its footing in
3:28
the state it calls its global
3:30
headquarters.
3:31
It comes just weeks after Circle
3:33
One federal approval from the OCC
3:35
to set up a national trust bank.
3:37
And here's the key, these two
3:39
approvals sit at different levels.
3:42
The federal charter covers fiduciary
3:44
custody of digital
3:45
assets while the USDC issuance
3:48
is set to route through this new New
3:49
York trust company.
3:51
Our next story, a serious warning
3:53
for Bitcoin hardware wallet users.
3:55
And this will be the predominant
3:57
theme of the entire show.
3:59
CoinCard issued security
4:01
advisory overnight for
4:03
its cold card MK3 devices,
4:06
telling anyone who generated a seed
4:07
on version 4.1.1
4:10
or later that their funds may
4:12
be at risk. We now know that this is
4:14
100% true.
4:15
The alert follows reports of Bitcoin
4:17
being drained from cold card
4:19
wallets, roughly 594
4:21
Bitcoin, about $38 million
4:24
swept from 500 single
4:26
signature addresses.
4:27
In a coordinated string of
4:29
transactions.
4:30
It's definitely the biggest story of
4:31
the last 24 hours and probably
4:33
the worst hardware wallet
4:35
incident we've
4:37
ever seen.
4:38
We'll be jumping into that in a few
4:40
minutes time with Freddie Niu.
4:41
Our last two stories, crypto's big
4:43
market structure bill is
4:45
still hung up on ethics and
4:46
lawmakers are making another run at
4:48
it. Senators Tom Tillis
4:50
and Ruben Gallego sent a
4:51
fresh compromise to the White House
4:53
on Thursday morning.
4:54
Hoping to break the logjam blocking
4:56
the sweeping clarity act.
4:58
The sticking point here, Democrats
5:00
won tougher language around
5:01
President Trump's crypto interests
5:03
from the meme coin he launched
5:04
to his family's tires toward Liberty
5:06
Financial.
5:07
Last week's draft barred
5:10
officials and their spouses from
5:11
issuing digital assets, but critics
5:13
say a sunset clause expiring
5:15
in 2029 guts
5:17
that whole provision.
5:18
And staying in Washington to wrap
5:20
things up, Senate Democratic Leader
5:23
Chuck Schumer is out with a
5:25
new bill to create an independent
5:26
anti-corruption bureau.
5:28
The seven-member agency would get
5:30
investigative subpoena and
5:31
enforcement powers to probe and claw
5:33
back money tied to executive
5:35
branch corruption.
5:37
Schumer frames it as a direct shot
5:38
at President Trump, claiming Trump
5:39
has pulled in more than $2 billion
5:41
and his family more than 4 billion
5:43
since returning to office.
5:45
The bill would also let private
5:46
plaintiffs and state attorney
5:48
general sue to recover corrupt
5:50
profits from president senior
5:51
officials and major contractors.
5:54
That's it for the block briefing.
5:55
We're gonna welcome Freddie New to
5:56
the show to talk to us about the big
5:58
story.
5:59
Honestly, in my mind, it's probably
6:01
the biggest story of the year, if we
6:03
actually think about the potential
6:05
knock-on effects that
6:07
it could have and how it's gonna
6:09
force us to rethink self-custody,
6:11
custody of Bitcoin and security
6:13
going forward. But first things
6:14
first, Freddie, it is great to have
6:15
you back on the show.
6:16
We last had you in person at BTC
6:18
Prague. How are you?
6:26
I'm good. Thank you.
6:28
I feel a bit guilty saying that
6:29
given that a lot of Bitcoiners are
6:30
not good today Thank
6:32
you for having me back
6:35
Yeah, I think we might have a slight
6:36
delay in talking to each other.
6:38
So just apologies to the audience
6:39
out there if there is a little gap
6:41
between me and Freddie replying
6:43
to each.
6:43
Yeah. First things first, obviously
6:45
the quick TLDR of the
6:47
cold card exploit.
6:50
Can you tell us a little bit about
6:51
what you know and when you first
6:52
heard the news, because I kind of
6:53
woke up to this this morning and saw
6:55
loads of different Bitcoiners
6:57
talking about the exploit.
6:59
Do you want to give us a rundown or
7:00
do you want to leave it to me?
7:05
Sure, I can give you a summary.
7:07
So I first saw some indication
7:09
of this last night.
7:11
And then like you did much
7:14
more about it this morning, as you
7:15
said in the summary there, what we
7:17
seem to be seeing is that
7:19
a vulnerability was identified
7:21
essentially in the way that
7:23
the Mark III, the Mark IV,
7:25
and potentially the Q generated
7:28
their entropy.
7:42
Freddie, I'm not sure if you
7:44
are still with us.
7:46
I'm gonna very quickly ask you to
7:48
drop off and join the
7:50
studio once again.
7:52
I'll be back in one second.
7:54
No problem.
7:56
And for the viewers out there, I'll
7:57
quickly just pick up where Freddie
7:59
left off, because I have been
8:00
following it.
8:02
The real, fairly technical,
8:04
but high-level TLDR here is that
8:06
old firmware devices generated
8:09
entropy for creating seed phrases
8:11
weren't reaching the
8:13
expected 128 bits of
8:15
entropy.
8:16
So essentially,
8:18
these cold card devices that weren't
8:20
working. That we're using
8:22
this random number
8:24
generator, we're not generating
8:26
the required 128
8:28
bits, which essentially means that
8:30
an attacker could go and take
8:33
the entire, I
8:34
guess you could call it a database
8:36
or encyclopedia of
8:38
words that would make up this bulk
8:40
of these seed phrases, generate
8:42
all of them, and then be able
8:44
to match certain
8:46
seed phrases to public
8:48
addresses and then steal those
8:49
funds.
8:50
It's obviously a very high
8:52
level explainer of it,
8:54
and there's plenty of good tweets
8:56
out there that do a better job than
8:57
that, but that's essentially the
8:59
TLDR, and
9:01
the
9:03
actual impact is more
9:05
than $30 million of Bitcoin being
9:07
stolen from users that were using
9:09
the Mark 3, Mark 4, Mark 5,
9:11
the affected devices.
9:13
And, Freddie, just from your
9:14
perspective, let's talk about.
9:16
Uh what this means because you
9:18
shared out a really great video i
9:20
think it was last year which has
9:21
over a million views of your
9:23
kids uh using um
9:25
a coin toss uh or i think
9:27
i was dying for coin
9:28
Quintos.
9:29
In order to
9:32
reach the required entropy to
9:34
generate 128 bits,
9:38
a very, very safe seed phrase
9:40
for their device.
9:41
Can you talk a little bit about why
9:43
this is so important and
9:45
why this is such a catastrophe that
9:46
this has happened?
9:47
Absolutely, and firstly I must
9:48
apologize to you and the listeners
9:50
for my poor signal.
9:52
So the key thing to realize is that
9:54
both computers and humans are
9:56
very very bad at generating entropy.
9:59
Neither of us are very good systems
10:01
for creating randomness and
10:04
as a result in order to
10:06
achieve the correct level of
10:07
randomness to fully protect your
10:09
coins in self-custody you really
10:11
want to rely on physical phenomenon
10:13
whether those are things like.
10:15
A deck of cards that you throw on
10:17
the floor, or coins that you toss,
10:20
or dice that you roll.
10:22
So relying on physics to generate
10:23
your entropy is always going to be
10:25
safer than you yourself trying to
10:27
pick random numbers out of the sky.
10:30
And unfortunately, what seems to
10:31
have happened with the Mark III, and
10:33
we think also potentially the Mark
10:34
IV and the Q, is that they
10:37
essentially relied too heavily
10:39
on computer-generated
10:40
pseudo-random numbers in order
10:42
to achieve their level of entropy.
10:45
What I did with my kids was, it
10:47
started off as a game actually, it
10:48
was an exercise to show
10:50
them how to create a wallet
10:52
essentially using physics.
10:54
So we had a zero and a one written
10:56
on each side of a coin, tossed it
10:57
256 times, and
11:00
that creates 256 bits of
11:01
entropy, which is
11:03
essentially a single number with
11:06
256 digits, which is
11:08
so large that our minds almost can't
11:10
imagine it.
11:12
I still have one very good
11:13
explanation.
11:14
Really trying to pin down the
11:16
problems that seem to have emerged
11:18
from the coal-carl exploit.
11:21
On the one hand, imagine you have
11:22
all of the atoms in the Milky
11:24
Way galaxy.
11:27
And trying to find a particular atom
11:29
in the galaxy, that's the kind of
11:31
task that a supercomputer or an
11:33
advanced AI would be faced with
11:35
using a correct amount of entropy.
11:38
However, trying to a grain
11:39
of sand that you're holding in your
11:41
hand is a much smaller task.
11:42
It's still difficult.
11:44
But you've got a much, much smaller
11:46
universe of numbers that you're
11:47
looking for there.
11:48
And that's essentially what appears
11:50
to have happened here.
11:52
And I think maybe the first thing to
11:54
say is express huge amount of
11:55
sympathy for anyone who has lost
11:57
their coins.
11:58
But key thing right now,
12:00
and it's great that you are doing
12:02
this broadcast today,
12:04
the key thing now is to
12:05
minimize the amount of additional
12:07
damage that could be done here.
12:09
And the
12:11
message at the moment is very
12:12
much... Check your security setup.
12:15
If you have used a cold card that
12:16
is part of this exploit or this
12:18
vulnerability, the best thing
12:20
you can do is not panic and
12:23
very carefully move
12:25
your coins to another
12:27
address.
12:28
Whether that is on an exchange,
12:30
to another hardware wallet that you
12:31
have lying around or to a
12:33
software wallet, you're probably
12:35
going to be safer to do that and
12:37
then reassess your security.
12:39
Having said that, not panicking
12:41
is absolutely key.
12:43
There's a phrase that a lot of the
12:44
militaries in the world
12:46
use, slow is smooth, smooth is
12:48
fast.
12:49
Don't panic, do it step by step.
12:51
Find some tutorials if you need to,
12:53
there are plenty out there.
13:10
I think you're muted, mate.
13:14
I am muted.
13:15
Sorry about that.
13:16
I think there's quite a few
13:18
Bitcoiners overnight that put out
13:19
some great resources to help people
13:21
figure out what to do.
13:22
And Coldcard put out an initial post
13:24
and then a second post with the
13:25
technical details and
13:27
also some advice
13:29
for Coldcard users out there
13:31
to follow step by step in order
13:33
to safeguard their funds if they
13:35
haven't already been exploited
13:37
by the individuals
13:39
that have carried out this attack.
13:41
And again, just to reiterate,
13:43
Freddy, don't rush, I mean.
13:45
I'm sure everyone is panicking.
13:46
So it's very easy to say, don't
13:47
panic, but try and keep your wits
13:49
about you. If you are worried that
13:50
your funds are at risk,
13:52
get the right information in front
13:53
of you, move slowly,
13:56
do what you need to do, send
13:57
out test transactions, and just be
13:59
methodical about what
14:01
you to do.
14:02
My next question to you, Freddie,
14:04
is...
14:05
I don't want to say I
14:08
was one of those people that kind of
14:09
blindly trusted hardware wallets
14:11
because I always had some skepticism
14:12
and concerns around things that
14:14
have happened in the past.
14:15
I think lots of people pointed
14:17
fingers just at Ledger for the data
14:19
breaches that they had in recent
14:20
years and how bad that was.
14:23
But when it came to the actual
14:24
technology, we all just
14:26
trusted that nothing like this could
14:27
happen.
14:28
And it's very clear.
14:29
I mean, the issue here is
14:31
the randomness generator is actually
14:33
what the problem is.
14:35
But it's going to make everyone
14:36
rethink how they do self-custody.
14:39
You've been in Bitcoin for quite a
14:40
long time.
14:41
Do you have any golden
14:43
rules and perhaps some personal
14:45
anecdotes about how you safeguard
14:46
your funds?
14:47
Because there are some people that
14:48
will just hold all of their Bitcoin
14:50
on one single hardware wallet,
14:52
with one single ability
14:54
to sign.
14:55
And that creates one
14:57
single point of failure.
14:59
And there's perhaps some advice we
15:00
can give people out there to
15:02
better safeguard the Bitcoin.
15:05
There's actually a really good guide
15:07
written by a guy who's been in
15:08
Bitcoin even longer than I have.
15:11
He's called Armand the Parment on
15:12
Twitter.
15:13
He is not as well known
15:15
as he used to be, but he has
15:17
got a wonderful step-by-step
15:19
guide to advancing
15:21
up the self-custody
15:24
ladder, I suppose.
15:26
And he's very non-judgmental.
15:28
He starts with, yeah, maybe you've
15:29
gone to an exchange and you bought
15:30
some Bitcoin and you're it on
15:32
point-based. That's level one.
15:33
Then he'll take you very gently
15:35
through additional steps.
15:37
Maybe you want to move it off of
15:38
Coinbase onto a wallet on your phone
15:40
like Exodus for example.
15:42
That's a very user-friendly wallet.
15:44
Yes, it's multi-coin but
15:46
at the same time it's very easy to
15:48
use and then he will take you
15:49
through additional layers.
15:51
Maybe, you now want to get a
15:52
hardware wallet with a single
15:54
SIG.
15:55
Obviously, you can immediately
15:56
improve your single SIC security
15:58
by adding a passphrase.
16:00
Bear in mind that while a
16:02
pulse rate does increase your level
16:03
of protection in that it essentially
16:06
adds a 25th word to your 24
16:08
words and
16:10
it will create a new nested
16:12
tree of wallets underneath that
16:15
25th word.
16:16
So that yes that does give you some
16:18
additional security but it also
16:19
introduces another point of failure.
16:21
If you forget your passphrase or you
16:23
type it in incorrectly you will not
16:25
be able to access the funds in
16:27
those new wallets that are created
16:29
underneath that fifth word.
16:31
Ironically, a safer and
16:34
likely a more secure way
16:36
of storing your funds is with a
16:38
multi-sig solution.
16:40
So Sparrow or Specter are probably
16:42
the gold standard there.
16:43
They do actually make it very easy
16:45
for you to create a multi signature
16:47
setup.
16:48
And at the moment, as far as we
16:50
know, this exploit is not
16:52
affecting any multi wallets.
16:56
For anyone who's not familiar with a
16:57
multi-sig, that essentially means
16:59
that unlike a
17:00
normal wallet where a transaction
17:02
requires just one signature with one
17:04
private key to sign, a multi
17:06
sig wallet will require x
17:08
of n signatures in order to
17:10
sign.
17:11
So a common one is a 2 of 3,
17:13
so you would have a transaction
17:16
signed by your first key and then
17:18
you would sign again with the second
17:19
key and the funds can move.
17:21
That is a very, very safe
17:23
and secure, and it's probably the
17:24
industry standard and will
17:26
be used by a lot of exchanges as
17:28
well in terms of safeguarding your
17:29
funds.
17:32
So bear in mind that if you do use
17:34
a mark 3 and you had a passphrase,
17:36
you are safer than you would have
17:37
been if you didn't have a pass
17:38
phrase, but you're probably not
17:40
still 100%
17:42
safe because the passphrases will
17:44
delay the attacker.
17:45
We don't know how much longer this
17:47
attack is going to last.
17:49
And, to be honest, if you have any
17:51
questions, please feel free to ask them in the comments below.
17:51
If the attackers have been running
17:54
these scripts on
17:56
cracking seed phrases,
17:58
they're probably also going to start
17:59
cracking commonly used pass phrases
18:01
as well.
18:02
So it would be prudent for you to
18:05
review your security setup and,
18:07
like we said earlier, move your
18:08
funds to a new address,
18:10
to an exchange, to a temporary hot
18:12
wallet, while the dust is settling
18:14
here.
18:16
I found it really interesting to see
18:17
some of the takeaways and someone
18:19
shared an anecdote
18:21
of coin joins and
18:24
Bitcoin that had been sent to coin
18:25
joins from affected MK3s
18:27
and just any of the affected
18:29
hardware wallets and essentially if
18:30
those funds were taken out,
18:33
you would lose the number of
18:36
funds that essentially
18:38
TXs that were impacted by that
18:40
into the CoinJoin.
18:41
So, if there were... 1,510
18:44
were impacted, you would have
18:46
10 less coin joints helping you
18:48
hide
18:50
the movement or obfuscate
18:52
the movements of your Bitcoin if
18:54
you're into that.
18:55
But that's just one example of the
18:56
knock-on effects of what this is.
19:00
Are you worried about what this
19:01
means for the hardware wallet
19:02
industry?
19:04
Because I will offer a very
19:05
pragmatic take before I let you
19:06
answer. I've spoken to Joe Lubin
19:08
a couple of times, just about the
19:10
DeFi exploits this year, sort of in
19:11
the broader cryptocurrency space,
19:13
and he was kind of like, as bad as
19:14
it is for people to get stolen from,
19:17
when these things happen, they're
19:18
very valuable learning experiences
19:20
and it only improves the security
19:22
of the industry.
19:23
So I would hope that everyone moves
19:24
forward from this a
19:27
little bit wiser, but what's your
19:28
general take about what it means for
19:30
the future of Bitcoin in
19:31
self-custody?
19:33
I think that's a very good take.
19:35
There's a really good book called
19:36
Black Box Thinking, which you may
19:38
have come across.
19:39
And that's an allusion to the black
19:41
box that all aircraft carry.
19:43
And the industry has become such a
19:45
safe industry over the years by
19:47
learning from horrible accidents.
19:50
And there is a very non-judgmental
19:53
approach to analyzing what went
19:54
wrong in an accident and then
19:56
throwing all of your effort
19:58
as an industry behind making sure it
19:59
never, ever, ever happens again.
20:02
And that's what I hope is going to
20:04
happen here and what I very much
20:06
think the industry needs to do.
20:08
Bear in mind as well that we are
20:10
at the very early stages of
20:12
people using agentic AI
20:14
and these very impressive
20:16
models to find these
20:18
vulnerabilities.
20:19
This one has emerged in Bitcoin
20:21
first.
20:22
It's almost certainly going to come
20:23
to TradFi as well and
20:26
I would be very surprised if this
20:28
the last such incidents that we saw
20:29
either in Bitcoin or in traditional
20:31
finance.
20:32
Bear in mind that your
20:35
bank account is probably less
20:36
secure, arguably, than a
20:39
12 to 24 word
20:41
passphrase.
20:42
So I think that my takeaway there
20:44
is that while it's awful that this
20:46
has happened, hopefully it's
20:48
been identified early enough for us
20:49
to get the message out and to
20:51
protect as many people as we can
20:52
from losing their funds if they are
20:54
vulnerable.
20:55
And secondly, I hope the industry
20:56
will really focus on making sure
20:58
that nothing like this ever happens
20:59
again.
21:01
Yeah, I mean, I will say
21:03
that Bitcoin is not that they've
21:05
been living with their head under
21:06
the sand, but it's been a crazy
21:07
year, like, as I say, like in the
21:09
Ethereum ecosystem and in DeFi,
21:11
there's been essentially like an
21:13
exploit every day and it's
21:15
all the security experts I've spoken
21:17
to have literally just pointed
21:18
straight to, we've got such good AI
21:20
tools now that they can find and
21:22
carry out these exploits and that's
21:23
why we're seeing such a prolific
21:25
amount of them and attackers
21:27
will start doing this.
21:28
And I kind of think that this
21:29
industry.
21:29
Um is is an easy target
21:31
because it's quite easy to
21:33
move funds around on on blockchain
21:35
protocols and obviously this is the
21:37
first time i think this is the first
21:39
real instance where bitcoin
21:40
and the bitcoin ecosystem has been
21:42
hit hard and i will say it's very
21:44
interesting to see it kind
21:46
of feels like everyone is bitcoiners
21:48
again because like all the bit 110
21:49
guys and all the non-bit 110 guys
21:51
everyone's like rallying together
21:53
feeling very sorry for bitcoiners
21:55
about what's happened here and kind
21:57
of giving I mean, there's
21:59
a little bit of mudslinging at
22:01
Coldcard and their founder,
22:03
just for some comments made in the
22:05
past. But I don't think it's time
22:06
for that right now.
22:08
We should just be supporting each
22:09
other and getting behind
22:11
the efforts to
22:13
at least help people out as
22:15
best we can.
22:17
Yeah, I completely agree.
22:18
The focus now should be on
22:20
minimizing fallout and
22:22
then working to understand exactly
22:24
what went wrong and how to
22:26
prevent it in the future.
22:27
We've got no guarantee that similar
22:29
vulnerabilities don't exist
22:31
in
22:33
other wallets, other protocols.
22:35
Perhaps there's more chance of
22:38
being sure that this
22:40
doesn't exist in the open source
22:42
models. Trezor, for example, is
22:43
fully open source so that code can
22:45
be audited.
22:47
But at the same time, no one should
22:48
be complacent, I think.
22:50
So I very much think the focus
22:51
should be on, let's mitigate the
22:53
damage, and then let's make sure
22:55
that this export is
22:57
closed.
22:58
And I like what you say about us all
23:00
rallying together.
23:02
There's been a lot of Bitcoiners
23:04
punching each other in the face
23:05
recently,
23:07
and I'd prefer if we could move on
23:09
from that and get on to undermining
23:11
central banks instead.
23:13
I agree, I agree.
23:14
There's been a lot of tribalism of
23:16
late and I mean we go through waves
23:17
of it every few years and it's been
23:19
pretty hectic at the moment but at
23:21
least everyone's rallied together
23:22
over the last 24 hours and lots
23:24
of sensible comments coming from the
23:26
most important people in the
23:27
industry and again just like a
23:29
reminder I want to tell the audience
23:30
this about two years ago I went to
23:32
Zappa Bank's bunker in
23:34
the Swiss Alps where they keep one
23:35
of their you see shots so.
23:37
Obviously, they are a custodial
23:40
Bitcoin bank, so
23:42
you entrust them with keeping your
23:44
Bitcoin safe.
23:45
And the way that they manage their
23:47
Bitcoin holdings is through
23:49
MPC shards, and they're literally
23:51
servers in geographically
23:53
different locations that all
23:55
essentially create or
23:59
they form part of a multi-signature
24:01
setup that is very, very hard
24:03
to impact.
24:04
I mean, I can't tell you where this
24:05
bunker is.
24:07
Because I was essentially blind when
24:08
I went to it, but you can't
24:10
get into that bunker.
24:11
There's no way that you can get into
24:12
bunker. You can't
24:15
do anything bad
24:17
to this infrastructure.
24:18
And this is the kind of links that I
24:20
think custodians do need to go to
24:21
because that's kind of where we're
24:23
at right now. It's like, either
24:24
you're willing to take some of the
24:25
risks associated with self custody
24:27
and the difficulty in learning how
24:29
to do it properly and what that
24:31
comes with, or you entrust it with
24:33
someone and there's probably on your
24:35
handful of.
24:36
Companies in the industry where
24:38
people would safely say, trust your
24:40
funds with them.
24:41
But the whole point of Bitcoin is to
24:42
make you unbanked and have the
24:45
keys, right?
24:46
So ideally, we want everyone to
24:47
self-custody their Bitcoin or some
24:49
of it or a large part of it.
24:50
But we want them to do that safely.
24:52
And there's many different
24:53
considerations when it comes to
24:55
safety, because someone could break
24:55
into your house. And if you've got
24:57
your hardware wallet sitting there,
25:00
that's a risk, you know?
25:01
So there's so many different
25:03
consideration. So if
25:05
you are interested, I mean.
25:07
There's so many great resources out
25:08
there. I know Trezor Academy is one
25:10
that you can easily go to and get a
25:11
lot of information from.
25:12
BTC Sessions, I think, has some
25:14
great videos on this.
25:16
Jameson Lopp, I really love his
25:17
website. I think it's lopp.net.
25:20
He's got a huge amount of resources
25:21
on everything related to Bitcoin.
25:24
And obviously he works at
25:26
Casa, which is a custodial
25:28
Bitcoin and Ethereum
25:30
provider.
25:31
So there's many different resources
25:33
out here. I encourage you, if you're
25:34
watching the show, to go in.
25:35
And, you know, get yourself
25:37
clued up. If you've been taking your
25:39
self custody and
25:41
your OPSEC not so seriously of
25:43
late, I think this is a
25:45
big reminder to all of us to
25:47
double check what we're doing and
25:48
make sure we're things right.
25:50
Freddie, I wanna say thank you so
25:51
much for taking the time on a Friday
25:52
afternoon. You could have been on a
25:53
terrace somewhere with a pint in
25:55
hand.
25:56
It's always a pleasure, mate, and
25:57
anytime I can help you out, please
25:59
just let me know.
26:00
It's an honor to be here.
26:01
I would say one last thing.
26:02
Watch out for phishing emails.
26:04
This kind of exploit always leads to
26:07
more subsidiary exploits coming down
26:08
the line.
26:09
Don't reply to emails where people
26:11
are saying, are you worried about
26:12
your setup?
26:14
Let me help you.
26:15
Have you lost coins?
26:16
Let me, help you be very careful.
26:18
Yeah, yeah, very, very very very
26:20
good point to wherever you are
26:22
Around the world.
26:23
Thank you so much for joining us
26:24
today on the starting block We will
26:26
be rescheduling with Jack Mallers I
26:28
hope to have him on the show on
26:29
Monday set a reminder on your clock
26:30
We broadcast 8 30 a.m.
26:32
Eastern time in the US.
26:33
That's 230 p.m Central European
26:35
time here in Europe
26:37
on a normal day when we make
26:39
some exceptions for different people
26:40
So we were broadcasting a little bit
26:42
later today. So set a remind on your
26:43
plot. Have a good weekend We'll
26:45
catch you next week