Bitcoin new wallet count hits a 2026 high, Coldcard firmware vulnerability causes over $116 million in losses

Odaily News: Bitcoin added 2.27 million new wallets this week, with active wallet count reaching 751,000, marking the highest on-chain activity in months. On July 31, active addresses briefly approached 978,000—approximately 1.6 times the July daily average—while the first week of August averaged around 751,000 daily, up from July's average of roughly 610,000. Daily average exchange inflows stood at approximately $1.55 billion, down from July's $1.67 billion, with fund movements not accompanied by significant exchange buying activity.



This surge in activity is linked to a firmware vulnerability in Coldcard devices from hardware wallet manufacturer Coinkite. The vulnerability affects certain Mk3, Mk4, Mk5, and Q models, where seed generation utilizes a software random number generator, reducing the actual randomness of some devices to approximately 40 or 72 bits. Since July 30, related bitcoin losses have exceeded $116 million.



Holders of affected devices have transferred funds to new addresses and replaced them with unaffected hardware devices. Coinkite has released firmware patches and entropy remediation disclosure documents. This vulnerability stems from a random number generation issue in device firmware, not a flaw in the Bitcoin protocol layer.