The price of lumber has declined 35% since crypto exchanges first listed crypto-native lumber contracts for trading.

At the time, using blockchain technologies to tokenize, trade, or track an off-blockchain commodity seemed like a welcome revolution.

The price of lumber, in early 2021 during the COVID housing boom, had been rallying amid soaring demand for home renovation projects and limited supply from quarantined workers and broken supply chains.

When a client named Rusty contacted crypto recovery specialist Chris Brooks in 2021, he said he and two others had won 5,000 Bitcoin in a court case, worth around $53 million at the time.

They immediately set up a Zoom call to discuss the case.

“There were three guys on the call, and one of them holds up a phone. It has like $53 million in a Bitcoin address,” says Brooks, founder and chief executive of Crypto Asset Recovery.

The men claimed they were able to withdraw as much as $300,000 a week but wanted to get the whole fortune out. If Brooks and his son, Charlie, flew to Georgia to help them crack the wallet, they would make them millionaires.

Brooks and son bought plane tickets and went the next day.

At lunch, Rusty, a 6-foot-3 Army veteran, revealed the wallet didn’t only contain 5000 BTC.

“Rusty pulls out his phone, and he shows us a billion dollars in ETH. And that’s when I was like, okay, something very odd is going on here.”

The men then drove about an hour to a strip mall owned by one of them, where they went into the back office and were handed notebooks containing dozens of recovery seeds. The pair spent the day opening wallets.

They found about $10 in Bitcoin.

Brooks never established whether the wallets they were given had previously held the BTC or ETH Rusty claimed to own. They were never reimbursed for the flight tickets either.

Related: Do the Coldcard attacks mean all hardware wallets are now insecure?

Brooks now suspects Rusty had fallen victim to scammers who convinced him he had a large crypto fortune when he didn’t.

It was an early lesson for their crypto recovery business.

Sometimes crypto is lost. Sometimes the wallet is lost. Sometimes the password is lost.

And sometimes, it turns out, the money was never there in the first place.

Losing your crypto doesn’t always mean it’s gone

For wallet recovery specialists, “lost crypto” can mean several very different things.

They aren’t recovering Bitcoin from the blockchain; they’re recovering the information needed to access a wallet that already exists.

While someone may have thrown away a hardware wallet, forgotten a password or part of their seed phrase, none of those things necessarily mean the underlying crypto has disappeared.

Bruno Krauss, co-founder and chief technical officer of recovery firm ReWallet, tells Magazine:

“If you have some missing words, then you can often recover them.”

Bitcoin’s BIP39 seed phrase standard uses a list of 2,048 words, meaning that if someone knows most of the words, specialists can sometimes systematically search the remaining possibilities. The fewer pieces missing, the more manageable the puzzle.

Password recovery can work in much the same way.

Bitcoin’s BIP39 standard uses a list of 2,048 words. Source: GitHub

Krauss says ReWallet once recovered a 20-character password protecting roughly $3 million after reverse-engineering a flawed password generator.

Other cases depend less on technical exploits than on understanding how a particular person creates passwords.

That means asking clients about personal preferences like favorite foods and places, children’s names and birthdays, personal milestones or memories.

In one case, he says a customer was convinced she had used her children’s names, only to remember that the password was actually a phone number connected to a local delivery service:

“She didn’t know why, but then she thought about it, and she realized, oh, okay, it was because on this day I got the package delivered to the store and I thought, okay, this would be a nice password.”

Passphrases add another layer of complexity

Tom Bennet, a Bitcoin educator who has studied wallet security, says there is another particularly confusing category: the passphrase.

A passphrase is an additional piece of information layered on top of a seed. Enter a different passphrase, and you don’t necessarily get an error message. You can simply get another valid wallet. He tells Magazine:

“A wrong passphrase doesn’t throw an error; it succeeds and shows you a zero balance.”

So you can have the correct seed phrase and enter it correctly, and still think your BTC has vanished.

“Passphrases also don’t have any features to protect users from themselves; no list of 2,048 valid words, no checksum. So if you’ve forgotten a passphrase, it’s basically the same question again: how random was your passphrase? If it’s sufficiently random, there’s often no way to recover it.”

With lost or broken hardware wallets, even having the broken device isn’t always much help. If the wallet’s backup seed phrase survives, the keys can generally be restored on another device.

That’s why recovery specialists don’t necessarily need the original hardware, but enough information to reconstruct access to the keys.

Related: Irish police open Bitcoin wallet years after keys were apparently lost

Recovery can also mean fixing mistakes rather than recovering a lost wallet. Crypto sent to the wrong blockchain, like BNB to Ethereum, may sometimes be recoverable if the receiving wallet is under the user’s control.

Brooks says Crypto Asset Recovery has been contracted to crack more than 3,000 wallets belonging to around 1,500 people, and has cracked passwords for about 63% of them.

Sometimes you really have lost it

There is, however, a hard boundary. Bennet says:

“If your seed is truly random and you lose it completely, your Bitcoin is gone.”

That is one of the fundamental trade-offs of self-custody. A Bitcoin wallet does not have a bank-style recovery system or a central administrator who can verify your identity and restore your account.

Lucien Bourdon, Bitcoin analyst at hardware wallet maker Trezor, puts it even more starkly. If the wallet backup is lost and the wallet containing the keys is inaccessible, “no recovery company can help.” He warns:

“If they could, the wallet could be cracked, and self-custody would be fundamentally compromised.”

Thanks to randomness, crypto wallets make guessing a private key effectively impossible. In the recent case of Bitcoin hardware wallet Coldcard, a firmware bug weakened seed randomness on some wallets, making the seeds brute-forceable without physical access.

Weak random number generation is not a new problem. Source: Jameson Lopp

But if a genuinely random seed or private key has been completely destroyed, the number of possibilities is simply too large.

Krauss says recovery specialists can occasionally find technical paths into wallets that owners had assumed were permanently inaccessible, and that old wallet software, corrupted files, poorly generated passwords and hardware vulnerabilities can all create unusual opportunities:

“Don’t give up on edge cases.”

Recovery specialists can sometimes be scammers

There is an uncomfortable irony in the recovery business.

The person who may be able to help you regain access to your crypto needs the very information that gives someone access to it.

A seed phrase isn’t like a password that can be changed after someone sees it. Anyone who possesses the necessary wallet backup can often control the funds.

That makes choosing a recovery specialist a security decision in itself. Bourdon says:

“If you decide to do it, do the homework. Look for firms with a real track record and reviews you can trace to actual customers. Check that they charge on success rather than up front. And move your funds to a fresh wallet with a new backup as soon as you’re back in.”

He says users should also be wary of any unsolicited messages claiming that someone can recover their funds.

Krauss says other warning signs include people pushing users onto WhatsApp or contacting them from personal email addresses like Gmail, demanding upfront payments or asking them to open accounts at an exchange.

Recovery firms that charge a percentage of successfully recovered funds are not unusual; but paying money upfront to someone who promises to recover a wallet should set alarm bells ringing.

Brooks learned another lesson from the Rusty case.

While crypto recovery might sound like a technical job, a person who believes they are sitting on millions or billions of dollars can also be a security risk.

Crypto Asset Recovery no longer flies out to meet clients in person as it did with Rusty. The company now handles cases remotely, with sensitive wallet information processed through automated and air-gapped systems.

Brooks says around 71% of the wallets they crack contain less than $100, and the company doesn’t charge a fee for asset recovery under that amount.

If there’s one thing he wishes crypto users knew about asset recovery, it’s this:

“Learn what in the world a recovery seed is and why they’re important. That’s the simplest way to make sure you never have to talk to us.”

Magazine: Mystery surrounds why an OG burned $1M in Bitcoin

Kraken delayed its initial public offering (IPO) on Wednesday to at least April 2027. If the reader has lost count of how many times it has delayed, Protos is here to help.

The exchange has been hyping its IPO for over half a decade, and was previously very confident it would IPO in 2022.

In April 2021, Kraken CEO Jesse Powell told CNBC, “We’re looking at being able to go public sometime next year.”

He’s still looking.

By June 2021, according to Fortune, Powell reconsidered a direct listing after Coinbase’s debut. He delayed slightly to a “second half” of 2022 prediction in that article.

However, by September 2022, that target still looked doubtful. Incoming CEO Dave Ripley told a reporter, “No specificity on IPO plans that we can share.” 

The year ended with only delays and no IPO.

In June 2024, Bloomberg reported that Kraken was raising “final” pre-IPO financing for an IPO that never happened.

Then, in March 2025, the same outlet reported that Payward — the parent company of Kraken —  was re-scheduling its IPO for January-March 2026.

By November 2025, Payward had actually submitted a draft IPO document to the SEC on Form S-1. Its announcement said an offering was expected after SEC review.

Reuters reiterated its first quarter 2026 forecast.

Crypto wallet maker Ledger neglected customer safety after it failed to prevent and subsequently adapt to a string of data breaches, according to a $500 million class action lawsuit.

The August 27 lawsuit was filed by Douglas Kim, a Ledger user who claims to have lost almost $2 million to thieves who used data stolen from the company in 2020 and 2023, to target his crypto. 

According to the lawsuit, around the time of these attacks, Ledger demonstrated “a disturbing pattern of negligent, reckless, and irresponsible behavior with regard to its security posture and a callous disregard for its obligations to the privacy of its customers’ [personally identifiable information].”

Ledger keeps getting breached

In the 2020 breach, the personal data of almost 300,000 Ledger users was leaked and uploaded to an online marketplace for stolen data. 

Meanwhile, the 2023 phishing attack targeting one of Ledger’s employees resulted in the dissemination of malware capable of redirecting crypto stored in Ledger wallets to the attackers.

Unmentioned in the lawsuit, however, is the 2026 data breach that saw Ledger users’ personal data leaked when payments processor, Global-e, was hacked. 

On December 1–2, Blockchain Life 2026 will once again bring the global crypto industry together in Dubai: 15,000+ attendees from 130+ countries, 200+ speakers, and 200+ sponsors.

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The Love Island USA effect is not limited to these four women. The show has also brought notoriety and fame to their male partners and other Islanders, as well. But the breakout stars of the Peacock dating series are experiencing these phenomena on another level, with built-in fanbases that follow and support every campaign they take part in, both on and off social media. In a landscape where fame equates to followers and followers equate to money, these four Black women are raking in the profits and new opportunities their newfound fame has brought, and Black women are to thank for it. 

But even as their fans prop them up, it often seems as though they are taken for granted by other Islanders, those cast members’ fanbases, and ITV America and Peacock, which have seen their bottom lines grow significantly as a direct result of the dating franchise. Despite their success, Tatum, Bosse, Harvey, and Moreno have been subjected to constant anti-Black racism and sexism, and the support network that should be there to protect them has been conspicuously absent: There’s been no statement of support or condemnation from the networks, while cast members defend their mistreatment of the core four rather than have their backs. What’s more, the harm to these women is experienced by Black women watching the show as vicarious racism—an indirect exposure to racial and gender discrimination—that elicits feelings of fear, sadness, and anger. (As of publication, representatives from Peacock and ITV America had not responded to a request for comment.)

Student loan real-world asset (RWA) protocol Pencil Finance says it has completed its first “fully onchain” student lending cycle, deploying $1 million to fund education borrowers in Southeast Asia and then seeing repayments flow back to lenders.

In a Thursday announcement shared with Cointelegraph, the project described the full process as transparently recorded on the blockchain: capital was deployed onchain as a lender, borrowers repaid, and repayment was routed back to the bundle’s funders with yield.

Key takeaways

• Pencil Finance completed its first fully onchain student loan cycle using $1 million in deployed capital.
• The program supported about 6,600 students across 118 schools and universities in Southeast Asia.
• Funding was structured into senior (fixed returns) and junior (variable returns with first-loss risk) tranches.
• Pencil says roughly 1,050 students received direct funding, with 50% of borrowers female and 93% from lower-income households.
• The company frames the cycle as an example of blockchain-recorded lending for student financing that traditional lenders often overlook.

How Pencil Finance’s onchain loan cycle worked

Pencil Finance’s announcement centers on the mechanics of its student loan bundle being executed onchain from deployment through repayment. The protocol said it deployed $1 million in capital as a lender on the blockchain for a defined loan cycle, then received repayments from borrowers. Those repayments, according to the company, were distributed back to the bundle’s funders and produced yield.

The project also emphasized that the lending process was recorded onchain end to end, pointing to transparency as a core feature of the approach. Pencil claims the completed cycle is the first-ever “fully onchain lending cycle” that finances student loans with activity transparently captured on a blockchain network.

Tranche structure behind the $1 million bundle

While the overall figure is $1 million, Pencil’s program was funded through a structured tranche model. The company said the bundle was funded in July 2025 by Animoca Brands, Open Campus, and New Campus.

Under the arrangement described by Pencil, the capital was split into a senior tranche and a junior tranche. The senior tranche carries fixed returns, while the junior tranche provides variable returns and bears first-loss risk—meaning it is designed to absorb losses before the senior portion is impacted.

For investors and participants, this split is significant because it changes how risk and reward are distributed. Fixed-return exposure is paired with a loss-absorbing layer, which can make the senior tranche more attractive depending on the credit performance of the underlying borrowers, while still giving junior tranche holders potential upside commensurate with the added risk.

Who received financing, and where

Pencil Finance said the completed onchain loan cycle provided financing to roughly 6,600 students across 118 schools and universities in Southeast Asia. In its breakdown of direct funding, the protocol reported that about 1,050 of those students received direct funding.

Pencil also described borrower demographics and credit-gap positioning. The loans were intended for students underserved by traditional lenders, with the company reporting that 50% of borrowers were female and 93% came from lower-income households.

These figures matter because they frame the lending program not as a generalized education finance product, but as targeted support for segments that often struggle to access standard forms of credit. The scale across institutions—118 schools and universities—also suggests the protocol is aiming for broad distribution rather than a narrow pilot.

RWAs and tokenized credit: a broader trend

The Pencil announcement arrives as tokenized RWAs continue to move from theory into more operational examples—particularly in lending and asset-backed structures. In July, Cointelegraph reported that Brazil’s B3 stock exchange issued a loan denominated in 100,000 Brazilian reais (about $19,600), secured by “10 tokenized cows.” Each cow was represented by a unique digital token tied to an encrypted digital identity, while AI-powered smart collars from Cowmed were used to monitor each animal’s health. The comparison is useful because it highlights a recurring theme in the RWA sector: digitization of real-world collateral and processes to improve traceability and automation.

Student lending, however, differs from collateralized commodity examples. Instead of tokenizing a static asset like a cow, the onchain activity in Pencil’s model focuses on credit deployment, repayment flows, and the structured allocation of returns and risks across tranches. If the program’s claimed transparency and cycle execution can be repeated, it offers a blueprint for how tokenized credit could be operationalized for education financing—an area where data collection, verification, and enforcement are often the hardest parts for traditional lenders.

Still, several practical questions remain for observers: the long-term performance of the loans, how defaults (if any) affected tranche outcomes, and how the protocol scales the underwriting and administration needed to operate across many schools. Pencil says the first cycle is complete, but investors and partners will likely want to see follow-on cycles and more performance details over time.

For now, the key thing to watch is whether Pencil’s onchain lending flow—deployment, repayment routing, and tranche mechanics—holds up in subsequent cycles, and whether this model attracts additional capital for student borrowers in underserved regions.