Some major news rocked the crypto world recently, and it came wrapped in a whole lot of confusion and misinformation. I want to clear it up and give you a few important tips.

Coinkite's Coldcard hardware wallet got hit. Somewhere around 100 to 130 million dollars worth of Bitcoin was swept straight out of users' wallets.

Here's what actually happened, in plain English.

A hardware wallet is a physical device, usually connected to your computer over a USB cable. It's supposed to be more secure, and for the most part these devices are.

The reason is that your private keys, the encryption keys that unlock access to your crypto, get stored on the physical device and never touch an internet-connected computer. That's a real layer of protection.

But it also leaves room for error, especially when there's an incompetent company or developer behind it.

Coinkite pushed a firmware update to the Coldcard. Firmware is just the software that runs on a hardware device, kind of like the software inside your printer that needs updating from time to time.

The problem is a bug in that firmware generated wallet seeds using almost no entropy. Entropy is just randomness. Your seed is the master key that controls your entire wallet and spins off the sub-keys for every address inside it.

If you've been through my Unlock Your Financial Sovereignty webinar, you've watched me demo this on a paper wallet generator, where I wiggled my mouse around scrambling and long list of letters and numbers which is then used to create a private key. That mouse movement is created entropy. Randomness.

Coldcard's bad firmware skipped most of that randomness. And here's the kicker, that flaw had been sitting quietly in the code since a firmware change back in 2021, going unnoticed for years.

Attackers, likely with the help of AI, found the bug and realized they could just have computers guess the weak seeds, match them to funded addresses on the public blockchain, and sweep the coins. They never had to phish anyone or lay a finger on the physical device.

Now here's where the misinformation kicked in. A lot of folks saw this and thought Bitcoin itself had been broken.

It wasn't. Bitcoin works exactly the same as it did last week. My Bitcoin is fine. Nearly every user's Bitcoin is fine. This was a screwup by one hardware company and its developers, nothing more.

So let me give you a few tips.

First, I actually discourage most beginners from using hardware wallets, and this is exactly why. They add room for error. You have to go in and update firmware, which overwhelms a lot of new users, and those updates can introduce vulnerabilities when the company behind them is sloppy the way Coinkite apparently was.

If you do want a hardware wallet, use a competent company. I recommend Trezor at trezor.io. I'd stay away from Ledger, since they've had their own issues and been compromised before.

And one more tip most people are missing right now. Updating the Coldcard firmware stops it from making new weak seeds, but it does not fix a seed that was already generated on the bad firmware. If that's you, you need to create a fresh seed on the fixed firmware and move your funds over.

For most folks, I recommend a software wallet with solid practices and protocols, like Cake Wallet. That's exactly what we teach inside the Live Free Academy Accelerator.

Which brings me to why I'm writing.

This Thursday at 12pm Central, I'm running an Accelerator masterclass on self custody, seed phrases, and proper seed phrase management. It's for our Accelerator members.

The Accelerator is where we do the bulk of our crypto teaching. Monthly masterclasses, monthly crypto office hours where you hop on a Zoom and ask me anything live, access to every past masterclass and office hours replay, plus a success path course that walks you step by step out of the financial control grid.

Right now you can test drive the whole thing for a dollar. Cancel anytime. Join for a buck and you'll get this Thursday's masterclass, plus the replay if you can't make it live.

Test drive the Accelerator for $1 here

Now let me level with you about something.

I've been teaching this for a long time and I've gotten a lot better at simplifying it. But I still hear from people who feel like they just can't do it online, or that it's too overwhelming, and that they need someone right there with them.

Somebody asked me recently when I'm coming to New York so I can sit down with them in person. I can't be everywhere at once, which is why I put so much online.

But I get it. Having someone next to you, hands on your device, walking you through each step, is worth its weight in gold. Or Bitcoin.

That's exactly why we're hosting Exit & Build 6. The theme is Freedom in Action.

We're setting up an implementation zone dedicated to getting your wallet set up and getting your first crypto into it, right there on the spot. Then you can walk over and spend it on a regeneratively grown meal at Mollie Englehart's restaurant, The Barn, which will be accepting crypto, Goldbacks, and precious metals.

It's happening in Bandera, Texas, November 5th through the 8th.

We've also got a Fast Action Bonus live right now. Grab your ticket before August 18th at midnight and you get the Crypto Agorism Masterclass and the Permaculture Power Pack, $994 in value, free.

Grab your Exit and Build 6 ticket here

Look, I know this stuff can feel overwhelming, and maybe you've made mistakes with it before. It can be hard.

But I promise you it's going to be a whole lot harder the day you're locked out of your bank account and you can't send or spend a dollar online without behaving like a good little slave in the technocratic system.

So choose your hard.

We're doing everything we can to make that choice as painless as we can. Test drive the Accelerator for a dollar. Come see us in person in Bandera. Either way, get your hands on this before you're forced to.

Hope to see you at the masterclass Thursday, or in Bandera come November.

Stay free!

John Bush

P.S. The Coldcard mess is a perfect reminder that the tool you pick matters, and so does knowing how to use it. Thursday at 12pm Central I'm teaching self custody and proper seed phrase management inside the Accelerator. Test drive it for a dollar here. And if you'd rather we set your wallet up shoulder to shoulder with you, come to Exit & Build 6 in Bandera, Texas, November 5th to 8th. The Fast Action Bonus ends August 18th. Get your ticket here.