Korean Bitcoiners' Independence from Hardware Wallets Shields Them from $130M Hack

The recent Coldcard hardware wallet hack has left many in the Bitcoin community reeling. The attack, which was linked to a flaw in the random-number generation used by certain Coldcard models, resulted in confirmed losses of over $130 million worth of BTC.

However, one notable exception to this widespread loss was the South Korean Bitcoin community. According to Bitcoin analyst Koji Higashi, the relatively low losses suffered by Koreans were not simply a matter of luck.

Higashi pointed out that prominent members of the Korean Bitcoin community have long encouraged users to generate their own entropy rather than rely entirely on the random-number generator built into a hardware wallet. This has been done using simple methods such as rolling dice or flipping coins, and even creating BIP39 mnemonics completely offline.

This habit of generating seed phrases independently is thought to have contributed significantly to the Korean community's low losses in this incident. In contrast, English-speaking self-custody communities appear to have suffered larger losses despite having a high level of technical knowledge.