Original Title:How Korean Bitcoiners Survived Coldcard—and Issues It Revealed for the Rest of Us
Compiled by:PANews Big Pliers
Introduction
The Coldcard hardware wallet security incident that erupted over the weekend has sent huge shockwaves through the entire Bitcoin industry, with aftershocks still ongoing. The English-speaking community suffered heavy losses, while the Korean Bitcoin community, with its large number of Coldcard users, reported almost zero losses. Is this a gap in technical capability, or a deeper structural problem?
Japanese Bitcoin practitioner Koji Higashi, by comparing the responses of the two communities, provides a deep analysis of the English-speaking community's over-reliance on influencers, lack of neutrality, and 'echo chamber' effects, calling for the extension of the 'Don't Trust, Verify' principle from code to information filtering.
This article is not just a post-mortem of an incident, but an important reflection on the health of the Bitcoin community ecosystem.
Full translation as follows:
The Coldcard incident last weekend delivered a massive shock to the entire Bitcoin industry, and the dust has not yet fully settled.
While I was fortunate not to be directly affected myself, considering the damage it caused and its potential negative impact on Bitcoin's future, this incident also touched me emotionally.
Amidst all this, I heard some interesting things from the Korean Bitcoin community about how they handled the Coldcard incident, which I think is worth sharing (thanks to @atomic for the information).
In short, despite Korea having many Coldcard users, there were zero reported cases of direct Bitcoin losses locally. They handled the situation brilliantly.
In contrast, a notable characteristic of this incident is that many victims came from the English-speaking community—those who are actually quite knowledgeable about Bitcoin self-custody.
So, why was the Korean Bitcoin community able to weather this crisis safely?
I believe it's not just a matter of technical proficiency or level of Bitcoin understanding. It points to a problem that has been worsening in the Bitcoin space for some time: a lack of neutrality and an excessive reliance on influencers.
Using the Korean success case as an example, I'd like to point out some structural issues I've observed specifically within the English-speaking Bitcoin community.
The Korean Bitcoin Community's "Obsession" with "Air-Gapped Self-Custody"
As those in the know are aware, the Korean Bitcoin community has an extraordinary passion for self-custody and hardware wallets, especially the air-gapped feature (i.e., encrypted wallets not connected to the internet or wireless communication).
Because of this, Coldcard, as one of the earliest products offering air-gapped functionality, was extremely popular among Korean Bitcoin veterans. Up until the incident, there was clearly a significant user base locally.
Hearing this, you might think many Korean users suffered direct losses in this Coldcard incident. But the reality is, according to local insiders, almost no users in Korea were affected.
Why?
It turns out, leaders and influencers in the Korean community had been strongly advocating for the "correct" way of self-custody.
In the context of this incident, they advised users not to trust the random number generation of any specific manufacturer's wallet, but to more securely generate seed phrases by rolling physical dice themselves. And crucially, it seems many users actually followed this advice.
This is an impressive case. It's extremely rare to find a community with such a high level of self-custody understanding who actually put it into practice.
Blind Spots and Bias: How Influencers Amplify Risk
On the other hand, why were the losses so severe in the English-speaking community, where information should be more abundant?
As some have already pointed out, I too feel that one reason the damage was so widespread is the excessive trust some English-speaking influencers and podcasters placed in Coldcard.
Please don't misunderstand: I don't doubt that the vast majority of influencers are well-intentioned and strive to share as accurate information as possible. In that sense, it's unfair to place all the blame for fund losses solely on the influencers who recommended Coldcard.
At the same time, whether they realized it or not, a significant number of influential influencers and podcasters in the English-speaking world had received sponsorships from Coldcard, or had personal relationships with the team. Furthermore, their alignment with the Coinkite team's "Bitcoin-only" ethos likely skewed their objective evaluation and judgment of the product.
As a result, influential community leaders in the English-speaking world developed excessive trust in Coldcard's security. Their followers and other Bitcoin users followed suit, further amplifying inaccurate information and perceptions.
In contrast, Korean influencers—lacking those direct, close connections and viewing Coldcard from a more neutral perspective—were able to calmly analyze the risks of trusting a specific manufacturer's product. They advised their followers to minimize trust in Coldcard by using methods like generating random numbers via dice rolls. Ultimately, this approach protected many users from losing funds.
"Don't Trust, Verify": A Survival Guide Beyond Code
In hindsight it all seems simple, but I've come to recognize for some time that excessive trust in influencers—and the resulting Bitcoin community "echo chambers" based on personal or financial relationships—is a major structural problem.
Especially over the past few years, I've had to note a significant deterioration in the overall quality of information and discussion about Bitcoin in the English-speaking world, primarily due to these distorted incentives and personal biases. And I believe the Coldcard incident exposed this problem in the worst possible way.
Finally, Bitcoiners' favorite motto, "Don't Trust, Verify," is usually used in the context of software development. But I think this motto should also be applied to how we filter general information beyond software.
In fact, I want to emphasize that simply considering the financial and relational biases of the messenger—applying basic common sense—can proactively prevent a lot of trouble and accidents.
This is something users can do even without technical expertise. Personally, I think one key reason I've survived in the Bitcoin wild west for over a decade is my high sensitivity to human biases and incentives.
Using the success case of the Korean Bitcoin community contrasted with the English-speaking community as a lesson, I hope the entire community can genuinely reflect on itself and strive to prevent future fund losses and other potential harm.
