Crypto World
XRP is vanishing from exchanges. Where the supply actually went
Exchange reserves have fallen to a seven-year low of about 1.6 billion XRP, half what they were at the October 2025 peak. ETFs have absorbed nearly a billion tokens. Ripple still holds roughly 36 billion in escrow. This is the full map of where XRP’s supply actually sits in mid-2026, what moved, what it means, and why a shrinking float has so far failed to move the price.
Summary
- XRP exchange reserves have fallen to a seven year low while spot ETFs have accumulated nearly one billion tokens and long term holders continue moving coins into private wallets.
- Ripple still controls about 36 billion XRP in escrow, but steady monthly releases and relocks have not stopped exchange balances from shrinking to multi year lows.
- The report says tighter supply alone has not lifted XRP’s price, with weak market demand continuing to outweigh the effects of a declining tradable float.
Something unusual is happening to XRP’s supply, and it is happening quietly, underneath a price chart that has spent 2026 telling a story of decline. Exchange reserves, the pool of tokens sitting on trading venues ready to be sold, have fallen to roughly 1.6 billion XRP, the lowest level in seven years and down about 50% from the October 2025 peak of 3.76 billion. On Binance alone, the largest venue for the asset, reserves have dropped 20% since November 2024 to about 2.6 billion tokens across its wallets, pushing a metric called the Scarcity Index to its highest reading in more than two years. Meanwhile the seven US spot ETFs have quietly accumulated more than 970 million XRP, locked in custody on behalf of fund holders, after nine consecutive weeks of net inflows.
Tokens are leaving the places where they can be sold and accumulating in the places where they tend to sit still. In most assets, that migration is the textbook setup for a supply squeeze. In XRP, the price has fallen anyway, trading near $1.13, down roughly 70% from its July 2025 peak of $3.65, through the entire period in which the float was tightening.
That contradiction is the story. This piece maps the full distribution of XRP’s supply as of mid-2026: what sits on exchanges, what the ETFs hold, what Ripple controls in escrow and operational wallets, and what the remaining tens of billions in private hands are doing. It then works through why a halving of exchange reserves has not produced the price response the squeeze thesis predicts, the competing explanations for the gap, and the specific conditions under which a tight float starts to matter. The supply side of XRP has rarely been this interesting; the demand side is the reason nobody has noticed.
The map: 100 billion tokens, five buckets
XRP’s supply structure is unlike any other major asset, and the map has to start from its founding fact: all 100 billion tokens were created at launch in 2012. There is no mining, no issuance schedule, no future supply beyond what already exists. About 14 million XRP have been permanently destroyed as transaction fees since then, a rounding error, leaving total supply just below 100 billion. Everything else is a question of where the existing tokens sit, and in mid-2026 they sit in five buckets.
The first bucket is Ripple’s escrow, the largest single concentration of XRP in existence at roughly 36 billion tokens, about 36% of total supply. These are time-locked on-chain contracts releasing one billion XRP on the first of each month, of which Ripple typically relocks 600 to 800 million and keeps a net 200 to 300 million for operations, a mechanism this publication has explained in full. In July, Ripple relocked about 70% of the monthly billion, releasing 300 million into circulation. The escrow is the structural overhang critics cite and the transparency mechanism defenders praise, and either way it is the slowest-moving bucket: at current net-release rates, depletion is roughly nine years out.
The second bucket is circulating supply proper, about 62 billion tokens, and the remaining buckets are subdivisions of it. Exchange reserves, the third bucket, are the sellable edge of the market: roughly 1.6 billion tokens across venues, the seven-year low. The fourth bucket is the ETF complex: seven US spot funds holding a combined 970 million or so tokens, a bit over $1 billion in assets, tokens held by custodians and effectively removed from trading circulation for as long as fund investors stay put. The fifth bucket, by far the largest slice of circulating supply, is everything else: private wallets, corporate treasuries, whale cold storage, and long-term holders, somewhere near 59 billion tokens whose owners have, on the evidence of on-chain data, been net withdrawers from exchanges for over a year.
Two things stand out from the map. First, the actively tradable float, the exchange reserves, is now under 3% of circulating supply and under 2% of total supply, remarkably thin for a top-six asset by market value. Second, the two fastest-growing buckets, ETF custody and private cold storage, are both one-way doors in the short term: tokens flow in easily and come back out only when holders make an affirmative decision to sell.
What moved, and why
The reshaping of the map over the past eighteen months has three drivers, each visible on-chain.
The first driver is the ETF complex, which did not exist before November 2025. Since the first spot XRP fund launched, the products have absorbed roughly $1.5 billion in cumulative inflows, and because they hold the underlying token, every dollar of inflow is a market purchase moved into custody. The funds have now recorded nine consecutive weeks of net inflows, adding $17 million in the latest week even as Bitcoin and Ethereum funds bled, a rotation this publication has tracked. Nearly a billion tokens now sit in ETF custody, and the mechanism only reverses if fund investors redeem at scale, which, so far, they have done on exactly one notable day, the quarter-end outflow of June 30.
The second driver is whale and institutional withdrawal. CryptoQuant data shows the Binance drawdown accelerating recently, from about 2.8 billion tokens in May to 2.6 billion in early July, exactly the window in which the Scarcity Index broke out to 0.77. Large-holder activity has strengthened while retail stays cautious, new-wallet creation hit a three-month high, and Korean venues have recorded repeated multi-million-token outflows. The pattern, tokens moving from hot exchange wallets to cold private ones, is the classic signature of accumulation by holders with no near-term intention to sell.
Notably, this is the reverse of December 2024, when the Scarcity Index collapsed because holders were depositing XRP onto Binance in bulk to sell the rally to $3; today’s flows run the other way, out of the venues, into storage, at prices two-thirds lower.
The third driver is the escrow’s steady arithmetic. Ripple’s net release of 200 to 300 million tokens a month adds roughly 4-6% to circulating supply annually, a bounded, scheduled inflation the market can model years ahead. In 2026 the company has if anything leaned conservative, relocking 70% in recent months, and part of what it does release goes to institutional counterparties off-exchange, never touching the tradable float at all. The escrow is a source of supply, but it is a metered one, and its pace has not changed while the exchange drawdown accelerated, which means the drawdown is demand-side behavior, not a supply-side trick.
The puzzle: a tightening float and a falling price
Here is where the story stops being simple. Every element above, reserves halved, ETFs absorbing, whales withdrawing, metered issuance, belongs to the standard playbook of a supply squeeze, the setup in which shrinking availability meets steady demand and the price ratchets upward because sellers become scarce. XRP has instead spent 2026 falling, from $2.41 in January to near $1 in late June, before the modest recovery to $1.13. The float tightened; the price halved. Any honest supply analysis has to explain that, and there are three serious explanations, not mutually exclusive.
The first is that scarcity on exchanges measures potential, not pressure. A thin order book amplifies whatever demand arrives; it does not create demand. Through 2026, demand has been the missing side: derivatives open interest collapsed from last year’s highs, retail participation stayed weak, funding rates flipped decisively negative as price approached $1, and ETF inflows, while persistent, ran at a pace of tens of millions per week, roughly the same order of magnitude as Ripple’s monthly net escrow release in dollar terms. Australian lawyer and longtime XRP commentator Bill Morgan has made the sharper version of this point: neither the supply-squeeze thesis nor the older escrow-dump fear explains XRP’s price well, because the dominant variable is simply Bitcoin, which fell through the same months and dragged the whole market with it. On this reading, the tight float is dry tinder, and 2026 has been a year without a spark.
The second explanation is that the headline reserve numbers may overstate the tightness. Skeptics of the squeeze thesis note that measured exchange reserves depend on which wallets analysts attribute to which venues, that internal transfers can masquerade as outflows, and that estimates of total platform-held XRP across all venues and custodians run far higher than the headline 1.6 billion, with some placing 14 to 16 billion tokens within fast reach of order books. The February-March episode in which roughly 350 million XRP dipped and rebounded on Binance, likely internal wallet reshuffling rather than organic flow, illustrates how noisy the data is. If the true sellable supply is several multiples of the visible reserve, the squeeze is further away than the dashboards suggest.
The third explanation is structural: the sellers who matter are not on exchanges yet. Millions of tokens were accumulated between $1.50 and $1.90 during the spring’s failed rallies, and holders underwater at those levels represent a standing wall of supply that will migrate back onto exchanges precisely when price approaches their break-even. Add Ripple’s monthly release and the possibility of ETF redemptions in a risk-off shock, and the tight float is best understood as tight at current prices, with reinforcements waiting at higher ones. Santiment’s MVRV data showing holders at their deepest unrealized losses in the token’s history cuts both ways: it signals capitulation-grade sentiment, and it also marks exactly where the exit orders cluster.
How to read the metrics without fooling yourself
Because the supply story runs on a handful of dashboards, and because those dashboards are routinely misread in both directions, a short field guide to the metrics is worth the space.
Exchange reserves are an attribution exercise, not an audit. Analytics firms tag wallets they believe belong to venues and sum the balances, which means the headline number moves when tagging improves, when exchanges reorganize custody, and when internal transfers cross the tagged perimeter, none of which involves a single token changing owners. The 350 million XRP that appeared to leave and re-enter Binance across February and March was almost certainly internal wallet management, and any single week’s reserve print should be read with that episode in mind. The signal is in the trend across months and across independent data providers, and on that standard the 2026 drawdown is robust: the direction has been consistent since late 2024, it appears in CryptoQuant, exchange-published data, and third-party trackers alike, and it has accelerated instead of mean-reverting.
The Scarcity Index is a ratio, and ratios have two moving parts. The index compares available supply on Binance against demand conditions, so it can rise because tokens leave, because buying absorbs, or both, and it can whipsaw, as it did on the round trip from 0.80 in spring to 0.34 in June to 0.77 in July, without the underlying reserve base moving anywhere near as violently. Its historical extremes are more informative than its level: the deeply negative readings of December 2024 marked holders flooding coins onto the venue to sell a top, and the current two-year high marks the opposite regime, coins leaving into weakness. As a regime indicator it has value; as a timing tool it has embarrassed everyone who used it as one this year.
ETF holdings are the cleanest series in the entire picture, because fund custodians disclose and the products file, which is why the roughly 970 million tokens across the seven funds is the number this piece leans on hardest. Even here, one habit matters: distinguish flows from assets. Net assets fall when the price falls even while inflows continue, which is exactly what happened through the spring, deposits arriving as valuations shrank, and reading the AUM decline as investor exit inverted the truth. Flow data, positive for nine consecutive weeks, is the demand signal; asset data is mostly a price echo.
Escrow figures, finally, come with the strongest health warning of all, because the number that matters is not the billion that unlocks but the net that stays out, and the net is only knowable after the relock lands days later. Ripple’s own quarterly reports, the on-chain escrow contracts, and the monthly relock transactions are all public, and the discipline is to compute the net against the trailing 200-to-300-million average before drawing any conclusion. A month in which the net spikes above the band is a genuine signal about the company’s cash needs; a month of headlines about a billion-token unlock that ends in a 70% relock, like this July’s, is a signal about headlines. Every metric in this story is public, which is XRP’s genuine advantage as an object of analysis, and every one of them rewards the reader who checks the denominator before repeating the numerator.
What history says about tightening floats
The squeeze thesis is not being invented for XRP in 2026; it has a track record in this asset and others, and the record is worth consulting because it cuts both ways.
The supportive precedent is 2024. Exchange outflows through that year preceded the powerful multi-month rally that carried XRP from under a dollar to its January 2025 highs above $3, with Korean regional demand and shrinking sell-side reserves amplifying the move once the SEC settlement and ETF approvals supplied the demand spark. The structure of that episode maps closely onto today’s: months of quiet withdrawal, a scarcity metric stretching to extremes, skeptics dismissing the data, and then a catalyst arriving into a market with far fewer sellers than buyers expected. Holders who lived through it read the current seven-year-low reserves as the same picture at an earlier frame.
The cautionary precedents are just as instructive. The Scarcity Index itself has whipsawed within 2026: it climbed to nearly 0.80 in the spring, sagged to 0.34 by late June amid heavy long liquidations, then broke out to 0.77 in the first week of July, and the price fell through the entire sequence. A metric that can round-trip that violently inside one quarter is measuring flow conditions, not destiny, and the June reading arrived alongside more than $13 million in single-day long liquidations, a reminder that leverage positioning can overwhelm spot scarcity on any given week. December 2024 offers the mirror lesson: reserves ballooned precisely at the top, as holders raced to deposit and sell the $3 rally, which is to say the metric is at its most bullish after prices have already fallen and its most bearish after they have already risen, a lagging emotional gauge as much as a leading structural one.
The broader crypto record adds a final nuance. Bitcoin’s great supply-squeeze narratives, the 2020-21 exchange exodus, the post-ETF custody absorption of 2024, each eventually mattered, and each mattered on the demand side’s schedule, not the supply side’s. Assets have sat at multi-year reserve lows for quarters while prices drifted, and then repriced in weeks once flows arrived, because a thin float does nothing until someone leans on it, at which point it does everything at once. That asymmetry, long stretches of irrelevance punctuated by sudden amplification, is the honest historical summary, and it is why the traders who take the supply map seriously express the view through patience and position sizing, the same execution discipline any thin market demands, rather than through timing calls the data cannot support.
There is one more structural actor worth watching that previous cycles lacked: the corporate and fund treasuries. Beyond the seven ETFs, a growing roster of listed companies has adopted XRP treasury strategies, and the ETF custodian wallets themselves have become the single most legible accumulation channel in the asset’s history, absorbing roughly 750 million tokens in their first two months alone. Treasury demand is slower and stickier than trader demand, it neither chases rallies nor panics in drawdowns on the same timescale, and its growth quietly raises the floor beneath the float. Whether it grows fast enough to matter against escrow issuance is, like everything in this story, a race whose lap times are published monthly.
What would make the float matter
The supply map becomes decisive only when demand shows up, so the forward-looking question is what could supply the spark, and the candidates are concrete.
The nearest is legal. The CLARITY Act’s commodity classification for XRP, if enacted, is the gate behind which the large conditional forecasts sit: JPMorgan and Standard Chartered have each projected $4 to $8.4 billion in first-year ETF inflows under passage, an order of magnitude above the current run rate.
Flows of that size, arriving into a float of under two billion exchange-held tokens, are the scenario in which the scarcity math stops being academic; the Senate’s three-week window is therefore as much a supply-side story as a regulatory one. The second candidate is institutional adoption converting to token demand through collateral and settlement use, the slow path whose honest accounting runs through Ripple Prime, and the third is simply the market cycle: XRP has historically fallen harder than Bitcoin in downturns and snapped back harder in recoveries, and a thin float mechanically steepens the snapback.
Against these, the checkable risks: a CLARITY failure pushing institutional flows past 2027, ETF inflows decelerating or reversing for consecutive weeks, or reserves rebuilding as underwater holders redeposit into any rally. The dashboard for all of it is public. Exchange reserves, the Scarcity Index, weekly ETF flows, and the monthly escrow relock are each published within days, and together they will show the squeeze forming, or failing, in close to real time.
The conclusion the map supports is narrower than either camp’s slogan. XRP’s tradable supply has genuinely, measurably contracted to multi-year lows while long-horizon buckets absorbed the difference, and that contraction has been irrelevant to price for a year because demand collapsed faster than the float did. Scarcity is not a catalyst; it is a multiplier waiting for one. The honest position is that XRP enters the second half of 2026 with the most squeeze-prone supply structure it has had since at least 2019 and no evidence yet of the demand that would trigger it, which makes the supply map neither bullish nor bearish on its own, but the single best lens for judging how violently the price will move when the demand question, one way or the other, finally resolves.
One final frame is worth carrying away, because it reconciles everything above into a single sentence: XRP in mid-2026 is an asset whose company is accumulating credentials, whose long-horizon holders are accumulating tokens, and whose traders have spent a year accumulating losses, and the supply map is the ledger on which all three behaviors are legible at once. The reserves data records the holders’ conviction, the ETF flows record the institutions’ patient entry, the escrow relocks record the company’s restraint, and the price records the absence, so far, of anyone forced to compete for a shrinking float. Markets in this configuration tend to resolve abruptly rather than gracefully, because thin floats do not permit gradual repricing in either direction: the same scarcity that would turbocharge an inflow shock also means a demand collapse finds few bids on the way down, which is the double edge the squeeze narratives rarely mention. The map says the stage is set. It has never claimed to know the play.
For readers who want to run the numbers themselves, the recipe is short. Take the circulating supply of roughly 62 billion, subtract the ETF custody balance published in the funds’ daily disclosures, subtract the aggregated exchange reserves from at least two independent trackers, and treat the remainder as the private-holder bucket whose behavior the withdrawal trends describe. Cross-check the month’s escrow arithmetic against the on-chain relock, and note the week’s ETF flow direction. Fifteen minutes of public data, repeated monthly, reproduces every structural claim in this piece and will catch the turn, whichever way it breaks, well before the headlines do.
The last variable, as always with this asset, is the one no dashboard tracks: how much of the withdrawn supply belongs to hands that will actually hold through the next stress test. Cold-storage balances built at $1.10 by buyers who watched the token at $3.65 carry a different resolve than balances built chasing a rally, and the 2026 drawdown has, if nothing else, transferred an unusual share of the float to owners who bought weakness deliberately. That is not a prediction. It is the one qualitative fact the quantitative map quietly implies, and the one that will decide whether the next demand shock meets a wall of break-even sellers or an empty room.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Digital asset markets are volatile and you can lose your entire investment. On-chain and market figures are estimates current as of July 8, 2026, and may change. Always do your own research.
The flaw allowing the exploit traces to a March 2021 firmware build that routed seed generation to a predictable software randomizer instead of the chip’s hardware one, leaving the resulting keys reproducible offline by anyone who works out the range. Coldcard manufacturer Coinkite released emergency firmware for every affected model and told users who had generated a seed on the flawed software to move funds to a wallet address made with a fresh one.
Thorn said he had no direct victim report and published his findings on pattern matching alone, choosing speed over confirmation to warn people while the transactions were still unconfirmed.
If it holds, however, the running total across four waves had reached about 1,816 bitcoin, near $114 million, from more than 5,200 addresses since July 30.
Thorn advised users to check funds, move anything off an affected device and bid the fee up.
The pattern covered blocks 960,778 to 960,792, with 218 transactions hitting 462 victim addresses at a rate of about 14 sweeps per block against 0.3 in a pre-incident control window, roughly 45 times normal.
Each of the spent coins that arrived after the Coldcard firmware boundary, and the destinations were fresh addresses with no prior history, one per victim rather than the shared collectors that made the first two waves easy to map.
Disclosure: This article does not represent investment advice. The content and materials featured on this page are for educational purposes only.
Learn how to choose the best crypto payment gateway for businesses by comparing settlement, compliance, integrations, automation, and fees in 2026.
Companies serving international customers, digital-first audiences, or markets with limited card and bank transfer coverage may use crypto payments to fill the gap. A crypto payment gateway allows a business to accept crypto payments without building blockchain infrastructure internally. The provider can generate addresses, monitor confirmations, convert assets, screen transactions, and route settlements. The key question in 2026 is which provider can support the required assets, jurisdictions, settlement model, compliance process, and volume.
What defines the best crypto payment gateway for businesses?
The best crypto payment gateway for businesses depends on how the payment flow is expected to work.
Supported cryptocurrencies determine which assets customers can use, while blockchain coverage determines the available networks. The same stablecoin may operate on several blockchains with different fees and confirmation times.
The next question is what happens after payment. Some businesses retain crypto, while others convert it into stablecoins or fiat. Settlement options and automatic conversion should therefore be reviewed together. Auto-conversion can reduce volatility exposure and manual exchange work, while fiat settlement can simplify accounting and treasury management. However, availability may depend on the provider, jurisdiction, banking partners, and compliance checks.
Businesses must also decide how the gateway will connect with existing systems through an API, hosted checkout, or payment links. An API provides greater control over checkout logic and transaction handling, while hosted checkout reduces development work. Payment links support invoices and direct sales that do not require a conventional online store. Webhooks complement these methods by sending updates when a transaction is confirmed, underpaid, expired, or refunded.
Security and compliance determine whether the gateway fits internal policies. Relevant controls include KYB onboarding, AML screening, access permissions, withdrawal allowlists, transaction monitoring, and audit records. Transaction histories, exports, and reconciliation reports also reduce manual interpretation of blockchain records.
Finally, businesses need to assess reliability and total cost. Uptime and support affect payment continuity, while a headline fee may exclude blockchain charges, conversion fees, payouts, or fiat withdrawals. Providers should therefore be compared across the complete payment and settlement flow.
Comparison of leading crypto payment gateways
| Provider | Best suited for | Supported crypto | API | Fiat settlement | Auto-conversion |
| PassimPay | International digital businesses requiring multi-chain payments, automation, and several collection or payout methods | 74+ | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| CoinGate | Merchants seeking an established checkout ecosystem, major assets, e-commerce plugins, and scheduled settlement | 10+ core assets | Yes | EUR, GBP, and USD | Yes |
| NOWPayments | Projects prioritizing broad asset coverage, flexible integrations, subscriptions, or mass payouts | 350+ | Yes | Available through fiat processing and withdrawal tools | Yes |
| CryptoProcessing by CoinsPaid | Larger organizations requiring managed payment infrastructure, permanent deposit addresses, exchanges, and batch payouts | 20+ | Yes | Crypto-to-fiat exchange and bank withdrawal | Yes |
The table reflects publicly available product information. Exact availability can vary by jurisdiction, asset, network, account type, and onboarding outcome.
PassimPay overview
PassimPay combines payment acceptance, fund management, conversion, and payout tools in one crypto payment solution. The platform supports more than 74 cryptocurrencies across over 18 blockchains and is available in 122 countries.
Businesses can integrate through a Payment API or use Hosted Checkout when a ready-made interface is more suitable. Payment Links support remote billing, while Static Deposit Wallets provide reusable addresses for account-based deposits. Webhooks connect transaction events with merchant systems.
Beyond incoming payments, Mass Payouts and Batch Transactions support transfers to multiple recipients. Auto Conversion can move received assets into another supported currency, while Fiat Settlement provides an off-ramp for companies that do not want to retain all revenue in crypto. The Merchant Portal includes Transaction History and Reports for tracking and reconciliation.
PassimPay also provides AML Screening, checkout customization, and payment monitoring. It has more than 530 merchants, over 750,000 monthly transactions, more than $4 billion processed, and 99.99% uptime. Fees start at 0.5%, although the final cost depends on the services and transaction flow used.
This feature set suits SaaS, gaming, AI, hosting, e-commerce, and other digital services that need multi-market payments, user deposits, automated updates, conversion, or recurring payouts.
When different providers may fit different business needs
CoinGate may fit companies that value an established merchant ecosystem, e-commerce integrations, core cryptocurrency support, and settlement in major fiat currencies. Its standard plan lists a 1% processing fee and weekly automatic settlement.
NOWPayments may suit projects that prioritize asset breadth. It supports more than 350 cryptocurrencies, API-based payments, subscriptions, payment buttons, custody options, mass payouts, and auto-conversion. Its published service fee is 0.5% for single-currency payments and 1% when conversion is required.
CryptoProcessing by CoinsPaid may fit enterprise-oriented operations that need permanent deposit addresses, payment links, internal exchanges, mass payouts, e-commerce plugins, and crypto-to-fiat withdrawal. Its documentation lists support for more than 20 cryptocurrencies.
PassimPay may fit companies that need multi-chain coverage together with hosted payments, static wallets, automated conversion, fiat settlement, reporting, and payout functions. The final decision depends on the assets, networks, countries, controls, and settlement routes required by the business model.
Conclusion
Selecting the best crypto payment gateway for businesses requires more than comparing supported coins. Companies need to assess integration depth, blockchain coverage, settlement currencies, compliance controls, reporting, uptime, support, and total processing costs.
CoinGate, NOWPayments, CryptoProcessing by CoinsPaid, and PassimPay address different operational priorities. PassimPay stands among the more functionally complete options in this group for international digital businesses requiring multi-chain acceptance, automated fund management, and both collection and payout tools. Still, the appropriate provider is the one that matches the company’s payment flow, risk policy, technical resources, and settlement requirements.
Disclosure: This content is provided by a third party. Neither crypto.news nor the author of this article endorses any product mentioned on this page. Users should conduct their own research before taking any action related to the company.
The Coldcard exploit is not a hack in the way most people understand the word. Nobody broke into anything. Nobody phished anyone. Nobody stole a seed phrase from a sticky note. The devices generated weak private keys for five years, and an attacker figured out how to guess them.
Summary
- Four coordinated attack waves have drained an estimated 1,816 BTC (approximately $118 million) from Coldcard hardware wallets since July 30, with Galaxy Research tracking 5,294 affected addresses and warning that every vulnerable device will eventually be emptied.
- The exploit stems from a firmware build error present since March 2021 that reduced seed entropy from 128 bits to approximately 40 bits on Mk3 devices and 72 bits on Mk4/Mk5/Q models, making private keys guessable through brute force.
- Unlike the FTX collapse, which drove bitcoin off exchanges into self-custody, the Coldcard crisis is producing the opposite flow: users are moving bitcoin back to regulated exchanges and institutional custodians they previously abandoned.
- The net transfer of bitcoin from self-custody wallets to exchange addresses has been positive every day since July 31 according to on-chain flow data, reversing a two-year trend that began after FTX.
- Treasury companies that hold bitcoin through institutional custody, including Strategy and prospective entrants like Evernorth, benefit from a narrative shift that frames self-custody as a risk rather than a solution.
That distinction matters because it strikes at the foundation of the self-custody argument. The pitch for hardware wallets has always been simple: your keys, your coins, no counterparty risk. Coldcard was the gold standard of that philosophy. Air-gapped, open-source, bitcoin-only, endorsed by security researchers and institutional custodians as the most trusted device in the ecosystem.
If the most trusted hardware wallet can ship a five-year entropy bug without detection, the question is no longer whether Coldcard failed. The question is whether any hardware wallet can be trusted as the sole custodial layer for significant bitcoin holdings. And the market is answering that question with its feet.
The exploit in four waves
The first wave hit at 2:14 a.m. UTC on July 30. A single entity swept 594 BTC from approximately 500 wallets in 25 minutes. The second wave followed on August 1, draining 284.4 BTC from 2,889 addresses. The third wave hit later that day with 207.73 BTC across a separate address cluster. The fourth wave arrived on August 3, with Galaxy Research’s Alex Thorn identifying 448.7 BTC moving from 709 suspected victim addresses.
The combined estimate stands at approximately 1,816 BTC across 5,294 addresses. Galaxy measures 13.8 sweeps per block during active waves, roughly 45 times the baseline rate. Thorn described the pattern as “LIKELY Coldcard victims” based on unspent output characteristics and transaction behavior. The wording is precise because the attribution comes from blockchain analysis, not device records or law enforcement confirmation.
Coinkite, the Toronto-based manufacturer, traced the problem to a March 2021 firmware change. A preprocessor guard was supposed to select the hardware random-number generator during seed creation. The guard checked whether a configuration setting was defined, not whether its value was correct. The build system selected a deterministic MicroPython fallback instead. The firmware compiled without warnings. Seeds appeared normal. Addresses accepted deposits. Nothing indicated the entropy was catastrophically weak.
On Mk3 devices, the effective search space dropped to approximately 40 bits. A 128-bit seed has more possible combinations than atoms in the observable universe. A 40-bit seed has roughly one trillion combinations. That is within reach of commodity hardware. The Mk4, Mk5, and Q models include additional secure elements that mix their own entropy, producing seeds with approximately 72 bits. Better than 40, but still far below the 128-bit target.
The critical detail: updating the firmware does not repair an existing seed. Every Coldcard owner who generated a seed on affected firmware must create a new seed on patched hardware and migrate their funds. The key itself must be replaced.
The flow reversal: from exchanges to self-custody and back
After FTX collapsed in November 2022, the bitcoin community experienced its most dramatic shift in custodial philosophy. The phrase “not your keys, not your coins” became operational advice rather than a slogan. On-chain data showed a sustained, multi-month transfer of bitcoin from exchange addresses to self-custody wallets. The trend persisted for nearly two years.
The Coldcard exploit has reversed that flow. Net transfers from self-custody wallets to exchange addresses have been positive every day since July 31. The magnitude is not comparable to the post-FTX exodus, which involved hundreds of thousands of BTC over months. The current flow is smaller and more concentrated among users who specifically held Coldcard devices. But the direction of the flow is what matters for the narrative.
The users moving bitcoin to exchanges are not panicking retail investors. Many are technically sophisticated holders who chose Coldcard specifically because it was the most security-conscious option. They are making a rational calculation: the counterparty risk of an exchange is now quantifiable and insured, while the self-custody risk of a hardware wallet with a five-year entropy bug is neither.
That calculation is the narrative shift. Self-custody was supposed to eliminate counterparty risk entirely. The Coldcard exploit demonstrates that self-custody introduces its own category of risk: supply-chain risk, firmware risk, entropy risk, and the risk that the device you trust with your private keys is not doing what its manufacturer claims.
Who benefits: the treasury company model
The companies that hold bitcoin through institutional custody benefit directly from the narrative shift. Strategy, the largest corporate holder with over 550,000 BTC as of its latest disclosure, uses institutional custodians including Coinbase Custody and Fidelity Digital Assets. These custodians use multi-signature arrangements, hardware security modules, and geographic distribution that do not depend on any single device’s entropy quality.
The treasury company thesis is built on the argument that holding bitcoin through a publicly traded company is safer than holding it yourself, more liquid than holding it in a hardware wallet, and more capital-efficient because the company can borrow against its holdings. The Coldcard exploit strengthens the first claim in a way that no marketing campaign could.
Evernorth, the XRP treasury company preparing to list, faces a similar dynamic. Prospective investors who might have preferred self-custody of XRP now have a concrete example of what can go wrong with hardware wallet security. The listing calculus shifts when self-custody carries visible, quantifiable risk.
The broader pattern extends to every institutional custody provider. Coinbase Custody, BitGo, Fireblocks, and Anchorage reported inquiries surging after the first Coldcard wave. The product these companies sell is the elimination of exactly the risk that Coldcard exposed: the risk that a hardware implementation error, invisible for years, can make your private keys guessable.
The insurance gap and what it reveals
The Coldcard exploit has exposed an insurance gap that the industry has not addressed. Regulated exchanges and custodians carry insurance against theft, operational failure, and in some cases, hot-wallet compromise. The coverage limits vary, but the principle is established: if an exchange loses your bitcoin through its own failure, there is a claims process.
Self-custody has no equivalent. If a hardware wallet generates a weak key and an attacker drains the funds, the user has no insurance claim. Coinkite is a private company in Toronto. No product liability framework for hardware wallet entropy failures exists. The affected users can sue, but collecting meaningful damages from a hardware startup is a different proposition from filing a claim against an insured custodian.
The insurance gap is not a new observation, but the Coldcard exploit makes it concrete. A user who lost 10 BTC from a Coldcard has no recovery mechanism. A user who lost 10 BTC from Coinbase Custody would have a claim against the custodian’s insurance. The risk-adjusted comparison now favors institutional custody for any holding above the threshold where insurance matters.
The AI dimension and what it means for future exploits
Coinkite said the attacker used AI to discover the firmware flaw, and that Coinkite’s own AI audit of the same code weeks earlier found nothing. If that assessment is correct, it introduces a new variable into the self-custody risk model.
Hardware wallet security has historically rested on the assumption that open-source code is safer because more eyes can review it. The Coldcard firmware was public for five years. Thousands of developers could have inspected it. Nobody found the entropy bug. An AI model did.
The implication is that the advantage in firmware analysis has shifted from defenders to attackers. If AI can find subtle build-system errors that human reviewers miss, then every open-source hardware wallet is potentially vulnerable to the same methodology. The attacker does not need to find a new type of bug. They need to find a new instance of the same type of bug in a different codebase.
Block, Trezor, and Ledger have confirmed their products are unaffected by the specific Coldcard vulnerability. But “unaffected by this specific bug” is not the same as “provably secure against AI-assisted firmware analysis.” The assurance gap is structural, and the Coldcard exploit is the first public demonstration of it.
The self-custody argument is not dead, but it is wounded
The self-custody philosophy will survive the Coldcard exploit. Multi-signature arrangements that do not depend on any single device, hardware wallets from manufacturers with different codebases, and cold storage practices that incorporate dice rolls for entropy remain valid approaches. Coinkite itself noted that seeds created with at least 50 fair dice rolls are not considered exposed by this RNG issue.
What the exploit has damaged is the simplest version of the self-custody argument: buy a hardware wallet, generate a seed, store it safely, and never worry about counterparty risk again. That version assumed the hardware wallet worked as advertised. For five years, Coldcard did not.
The result is a more nuanced custody landscape. Self-custody for small amounts remains practical. Self-custody for significant holdings now requires either multi-signature setups, multiple hardware vendors, external entropy sources, or regular security audits that most individual holders cannot perform. For holders who cannot or will not take those steps, institutional custody has become the lower-risk option. And that is exactly the argument the treasury companies have been making all along.
What to watch
- Exchange inflow data. If the net transfer from self-custody to exchanges continues beyond the initial Coldcard panic, it signals a durable shift in custody preferences rather than a temporary reaction.
- Coinkite’s liability exposure. Any class-action filing against Coinkite will establish precedent for hardware wallet manufacturer liability. Watch for suits in US and Canadian courts.
- Institutional custodian onboarding numbers. Coinbase Custody, BitGo, and Fireblocks quarterly reports will show whether the Coldcard exploit translated into sustained new business.
- Strategy and Evernorth share price behavior. If treasury company stocks outperform bitcoin in August, the market is pricing the custody-narrative shift into equities.
- New firmware audit disclosures. If other hardware wallet manufacturers commission independent AI-assisted audits and publish results, it signals the industry is taking the supply-chain risk seriously.
Frequently asked questions
How much bitcoin has been stolen from Coldcard wallets?
Galaxy Research estimates approximately 1,816 BTC across four coordinated attack waves affecting 5,294 addresses since July 30. The figure is based on blockchain analysis and has not been confirmed by Coinkite or law enforcement.
Is the Coldcard exploit still ongoing?
Yes. Galaxy identified the fourth wave on August 3 and warned that vulnerable seeds will continue to be drained until affected users migrate to new wallets with fresh seeds on patched firmware.
Does updating Coldcard firmware fix the problem?
No. The firmware update fixes seed generation going forward, but it does not repair seeds already created on vulnerable firmware. Users must generate entirely new seeds and transfer their funds.
Are other hardware wallets affected?
Block, Trezor, and Ledger have confirmed their products are not affected by this specific vulnerability. However, the exploit demonstrates that firmware-level entropy bugs can persist undetected for years in any open-source codebase.
Why are people moving bitcoin to exchanges instead of other hardware wallets?
Regulated exchanges and custodians offer insurance, multi-signature security, and professional monitoring that individual hardware wallets do not. The Coldcard exploit made self-custody risk visible and quantifiable, changing the risk comparison.
Do treasury companies like Strategy use hardware wallets?
Strategy and other institutional holders use professional custodians like Coinbase Custody and Fidelity Digital Assets, which employ multi-signature arrangements and hardware security modules rather than single consumer hardware wallets.
Can affected users recover stolen bitcoin?
Recovery is extremely unlikely. The attacker controls the private keys. Bitcoin transactions are irreversible. Users with unconfirmed transactions may attempt Replace-by-Fee to redirect funds, but this window is narrow and not guaranteed.
Is self-custody still safe?
Self-custody remains viable with proper practices: multi-signature setups across multiple hardware vendors, external entropy from dice rolls, and regular security audits. Single-device, single-signature self-custody for significant holdings now carries documented risk.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, or legal advice. Loss estimates are based on third-party blockchain analysis and have not been confirmed by the manufacturer or law enforcement. Published August 3, 2026.
Bitcoin slipped below $63,000 on Monday, Aug. 3, even as falling oil prices and stronger U.S. stock futures created a more favorable backdrop for risk assets.
Summary
- Bitcoin fell below $63,000 while oil and Treasury yields declined on renewed Iran diplomacy hopes.
- Coldcard attack estimates now exceed 1,815 BTC across more than 5,000 suspected victim addresses overall.
- Spot Bitcoin ETFs lost $61.53 million last week, ending three consecutive weeks of net inflows.
- Strategy added Bitcoin’s 200 week average as prices hovered only modestly above the indicator Monday.
- A Senate delay left the CLARITY Act without scheduled floor action before the August recess.
BTC traded near $62,556, down 1.38% over 24 hours and 4.35% over seven days. It had reached a Sunday high near $63,650 before sellers regained control. Ether fell about 1.8% to $1,841, while XRP and Solana also declined.
The weakness came as investors assessed renewed U.S. talks with Iran, another suspected Coldcard attack wave, fresh spot Bitcoin ETF outflows and the absence of the CLARITY Act from Monday’s Senate schedule.
Bitcoin price fails to follow the broader relief trade
President Donald Trump canceled a planned military strike on Iran and said negotiations would seek to address Iran’s nuclear program and reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Brent crude fell to about $83.28 per barrel, while West Texas Intermediate dropped to $79.47.
Nasdaq futures rose about 0.8%, while S&P 500 futures gained 0.6%. Treasury prices also strengthened as lower oil reduced some of the inflation concerns created by disrupted energy supplies.
Bitcoin did not follow that move. The divergence does not prove that one crypto event caused the decline. However, it shows that lower oil and stronger equity futures were not enough to overcome the pressures already affecting digital assets.
The relative weakness is consistent with a possible rotation of speculative capital toward technology stocks. Price action alone cannot confirm that movement, but renewed activity in equities can reduce demand for crypto when traders have several competing sources of volatility.
Coldcard losses keep security fears in focus
Galaxy Research head Alex Thorn identified what he described as a “LIKELY” fourth organized wave affecting Coldcard generated addresses. His updated estimate covered 709 potential victim addresses and 448.7 BTC. Activity reached 13.8 sweeps per Bitcoin block, about 45 times the rate measured during an earlier control period.
Galaxy had previously mapped three suspected waves involving 1,367.05 BTC across 4,585 addresses. Adding the latest estimate produces a possible total of 1,815.75 BTC across 5,294 addresses, assuming the groups contain no overlap.
That total remains an onchain estimate. Coinkite, law enforcement agencies and individual wallet owners have not independently confirmed every address as a victim. Galaxy has also not established whether one attacker controlled all four waves.
The incident concerns seed generation in affected Coldcard firmware rather than a failure in Bitcoin’s network or transaction cryptography. Coinkite said some devices created seeds with less randomness than intended, allowing attackers to search a smaller range of possible keys.
Coinkite has released corrected firmware for each affected model. However, installing an update does not repair an existing vulnerable seed. Users must generate a new seed with corrected firmware and transfer their funds. The company said its investigation remains ongoing.
As crypto.news previously reported, Thorn also identified similar transactions waiting in the mempool. Some users may be able to replace an unconfirmed attacker transaction with a higher fee transfer, although success is “not guaranteed.”
ETF outflows and the CLARITY delay add pressure
U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded about $61.5 million in net outflows from July 27 through July 31, based on SoSoValue data. The result ended three consecutive weeks of net inflows.
The final session caused most of the weekly reversal. Funds lost a combined $265.4 million on July 31. BlackRock’s IBIT recorded $122.7 million in withdrawals, while Fidelity’s FBTC lost $54.8 million and Grayscale’s GBTC posted $52.6 million in outflows.
The flows do not show whether investors expect further price declines. They do show that regulated fund demand weakened as Bitcoin moved closer to long term support.
Political uncertainty added another concern. Monday’s official Senate schedule included a vote on a spending measure but no action on the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act. The chamber’s published cloture records also showed no petition for the legislation.
As crypto.news reported, leaders would ordinarily need to file cloture by Wednesday, Aug. 5, to hold a possible Friday vote on proceeding to the bill. Such a vote would not constitute final passage.
The absence of scheduled action cannot be identified as the direct cause of Bitcoin’s decline. Still, it removes a possible near term policy catalyst while traders await a clearer Senate timetable.
Bitcoin price now faces a $60,000 support test
The supplied daily chart shows Bitcoin struggling below the $63,000 to $65,000 range. Momentum has weakened, with the relative strength index at 42.65 and below its moving average of 50.40.
The MACD histogram has also turned negative. A sustained move below $60,000 would weaken the current structure, while a recovery above $65,000 to $66,000 would provide stronger evidence that buyers have regained control.
Strategy founder Michael Saylor said the company had begun tracking Bitcoin’s 200 week moving average and its premium to that level. He said Bitcoin had remained above the average 92% of the time since the indicator became available. The percentage reflects Strategy’s calculation rather than an independent market study.
The next checkpoints are Coldcard’s technical review, Monday’s ETF flows and any Senate filing before Wednesday. Until those pressures ease, lower oil prices and stronger stock futures may remain insufficient to produce a lasting Bitcoin rebound.
Disclosure: This article does not represent investment advice. The content and materials featured on this page are for educational purposes only.
Nasdaq-listed crypto treasury company ZeroStack has raised serious questions about its financial runway, warning in a recent SEC filing that “substantial doubt” exists about whether it can keep operating for the next year. The assessment marks a sharp reversal from its view just a quarter earlier, highlighting how dependent the company’s plan is on staking income and the liquidity of its Zero Gravity (0G) token.
In a Form 10-Q filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday, ZeroStack reported $2.6 million in cash and negative working capital of $600,000 as of June 30, along with an accumulated deficit of $339.1 million. The filing also detailed a major unrealized drag from its token treasury: an $82.5 million fair value loss on digital assets and a net loss of $61.3 million for the first half of 2026.
Key takeaways
- ZeroStack now says there is substantial doubt it can continue operating over the next year, reversing its earlier “sufficient” outlook in a prior filing.
- As of June 30, the company held 75.1 million 0G tokens, valued at $15.2 million versus an aggregate cost of $163.3 million (about 91% below recorded cost).
- The company relies on staking rewards and sales of 0G tokens to fund operations, making its cash position sensitive to token price and trading liquidity.
- ZeroStack reported $3.8 million in staking revenue in the first half of 2026, but it also recorded significant losses and could not conclude that its planned funding steps fully remove going-concern risk.
SEC filing flags going-concern risk
ZeroStack’s latest filing is notable not just for its headline loss figures, but for the governance and risk signal it sends to investors. Management stated that it could not conclude its plans would be enough to eliminate doubts about whether the company can continue as a going concern over the next year.
The company’s balance sheet underscores the pressure behind that conclusion. With $2.6 million in cash and negative working capital of $600,000 at June 30, ZeroStack’s near-term flexibility appears limited. It also reported an accumulated deficit of $339.1 million, reflecting losses that have compounded over time.
Beyond liquidity, the filing shows the company is carrying a large unrealized impairment in its digital asset treasury. ZeroStack disclosed an $82.5 million fair value loss on digital assets during the period, alongside a net loss of $61.3 million for the first half of 2026.
A treasury strategy tied to 0G’s market
ZeroStack’s operating model depends heavily on 0G token performance and the token’s market depth. The company reported that it holds 75.1 million 0G tokens with an aggregate cost of $163.3 million and a fair value of $15.2 million as of June 30. Put differently, the holdings were valued about 91% below their recorded costs.
That gap matters for both accounting and funding. If the company intends to finance operations through token sales—especially during periods of weak liquidity—its ability to raise cash could be constrained even if balances appear large on paper. The company explicitly linked its funding capacity to both the 0G price and trading liquidity, according to the filing.
ZeroStack’s management also described reliance on staking rewards and token sales. In practice, staking income can provide periodic cash flow, but it may not be sufficient in periods when token markets are illiquid or when valuations fall further.
Staking revenue helps—yet the runway question remains
During the first half of 2026, ZeroStack reported $3.8 million in staking revenue. After validator commissions, the company said it earned about 6.6 million 0G tokens from staking activity.
To support expenses, ZeroStack sold nearly 4.9 million 0G tokens for $2.4 million over the same period. The filing indicates that these cash inflows—staking-related and sale-related—are central to its ability to pay forecast operating costs.
ZeroStack also said that, if needed, it could sell some of its treasury holdings. However, management’s conclusion did not fully reassure the markets: it said it could not determine that those actions would be enough to address going-concern doubts.
The tension here is straightforward. When a company’s main treasury assets have experienced steep valuation declines, the theoretical ability to raise cash by selling holdings can become less effective in the real world—particularly if market pricing and liquidity do not support the volume and proceeds management may be counting on.
Backtracking from earlier filings
Perhaps the most consequential element of the news is the reversal in ZeroStack’s assessment. In its first-quarter Form 10-Q filing, the company stated that its cash and staking rewards would be sufficient to meet its working capital requirements and obligations for at least another year.
In the most recent filing, it no longer reaches that conclusion and instead flags substantial doubt about continued operations over the next year. The shift suggests that circumstances changed—or that management’s confidence in the sustainability of its funding plan weakened as results and valuations evolved.
ZeroStack’s corporate background also provides context for how the company arrived at this point. The filing notes that the company was previously Flora Growth, a cannabis and CBD products firm. On Sept. 19, Flora announced $401 million in funding for a 0G treasury strategy, including $35 million in cash and equivalent commitments and more than $366 million in in-kind digital assets. The company later rebranded as ZeroStack and retained its Nasdaq listing.
Those details underline why investors are likely to focus on token treasury outcomes: the strategy is fundamentally designed to monetize staking and manage liquidity through sales. When 0G’s fair value diverges sharply from recorded cost, the difference can translate into both accounting losses and real constraints on financing flexibility.
What readers should watch next is whether ZeroStack provides further clarity on how it plans to balance staking, token sales, and liquidity needs—particularly given its much narrower margin for error after the “substantial doubt” disclosure. Investors will also likely track changes in 0G trading conditions, since the company’s own filings tie its funding outlook directly to token price and market liquidity.
Ripple has expanded its digital capital markets strategy. The company announced today investments in Zilo and Lucuido – two firms that are focused on developing infrastructure for tokenized funds and institutional asset trading.
The move builds on existing partnerships with both firms. Ripple did not disclose the size of either investment.
Speaking on the matter was Nigel Khakoo, SVP, Trading and Markets at Ripple, who said:
“… ZILO and Licuido provide core capabilities that are essential to further scaling this shift: regulated digital transfer agency infrastructure and liquidity for issuance and collateral mobility. This is just the beginning of the journey, and we see a substantial opportunity to bring huge efficiencies to the investment sector over the next decade.”
ZILO provides transfer agency and fund administration technology. Its systems give asset managers and custodians regulated digital records for tokenized share classes. Licuido, on the other hand, operates an FCA-regulated platform that supports the issuance, distribution, trading, and use of traditional assets as digital collateral.
Ripple plans to integrate these capabilities with its infrastructure on the XRP Ledger. The company wants institutions to issue tokenized assets, hold them in custody, move them between investors, and use them as collateral without relying on legacy systems.
Naturally, RLUSD will serve as the regulated cash component for delivery-versus-payment transactions. This structure is designed to allow the asset and payment sides of a trade to settle together on XRPL.
The investments also support Ripple’s recent push to build a broader institutional platform around tokenization, payments, stablecoins, and trading. Last month, the firm launched Ripple Mint and made an investment in compliance provider Notabene. This strengthens the infrastructure that’s available to institutions using RLUSD.
It’s also noteworthy that the company has worked with Aviva Investors, Franklin Templeton, and DBS on tokenized fund and collateral projects. Ripple said that ZILO and Licuido will help turn those individual partnerships into infrastructure that asset managers can use at scale.
The post Important Ripple (XRP) Announcement, New Investments: August 3 appeared first on CryptoPotato.
The crypto exchange stopped accepting new registrations from Japan residents and will begin progressively restricting existing accounts on Nov. 1.
ZeroStack has warned its cash position may not support operations for another year.
Summary
- ZeroStack has warned that substantial doubt exists about its ability to continue operating over the next year after reversing its earlier liquidity outlook.
- The company reported $2.6 million in cash while its 75.1 million 0G token treasury was valued about 91% below its acquisition cost as of June 30.
- ZeroStack said staking rewards and token sales remain its main funding sources, but management could not conclude those plans would remove the going concern risk.
- The latest filing comes months after CEO Daniel Reis Faria said regulatory uncertainty continued to keep larger institutional investors on the sidelines.
According to a Form 10-Q filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday, Nasdaq-listed crypto treasury company ZeroStack said substantial doubt exists about its ability to continue as a going concern over the next 12 months, reversing the conclusion it reached in its previous quarterly filings.
As of June 30, the company reported $2.6 million in cash, negative working capital of $600,000, and an accumulated deficit of $339.1 million. During the first half of 2026, it recorded an $82.5 million fair value loss on digital assets and a net loss of $61.3 million, according to the filing.
Management said existing cash, proceeds from staking rewards, and possible sales of treasury assets are expected to support operating costs. Even so, the company concluded it could not determine that those measures would remove the substantial doubt surrounding its ability to continue operating for the next year.
ZeroStack’s 0G treasury has lost most of its recorded value
The filing showed ZeroStack held 75.1 million Zero Gravity (0G) tokens with an aggregate acquisition cost of $163.3 million. Their fair value had fallen to $15.2 million by June 30, leaving the treasury valued about 91% below its recorded cost.
The company said its operating model depends largely on staking rewards and periodic token sales, making its access to cash dependent on both the market price and trading liquidity of the 0G token.
For the first six months of the year, ZeroStack generated $3.8 million in staking revenue after earning about 6.6 million 0G tokens following validator commissions. Over the same period, it sold nearly 4.9 million tokens for $2.4 million to cover operating expenses.
Although management said additional treasury sales remain available if needed, the filing stated that those plans were not sufficient to conclude that the going concern uncertainty had been resolved.
Filing reverses the company’s earlier liquidity outlook
The latest assessment differs from the position ZeroStack presented just three months earlier.
In its first-quarter filing, the company said available cash together with expected staking rewards would be enough to meet working capital needs and other obligations for at least the following 12 months. The latest report withdraws that conclusion after a sharp decline in the value of its digital asset holdings.
ZeroStack adopted its current treasury strategy after operating for years as cannabis and CBD products company Flora Growth.
On Sept. 19, the company announced a $401 million financing package to establish a treasury focused on the Zero Gravity ecosystem. The package included $35 million in cash and cash-equivalent commitments alongside more than $366 million in in-kind digital asset contributions. Flora Growth later rebranded as ZeroStack while retaining its Nasdaq listing.
ZeroStack CEO previously pointed to regulation as another institutional hurdle
The company’s financial disclosure comes months after ZeroStack Chief Executive Officer Daniel Reis-Faria discussed another challenge facing digital asset companies: regulatory uncertainty.
Speaking to crypto.news in May, Reis-Faria said progress on U.S. stablecoin legislation had reduced one source of uncertainty for investors but had not yet convinced larger institutions to increase participation.
His comments followed a bipartisan agreement between Senators Thom Tillis and Angela Alsobrooks on stablecoin provisions in the CLARITY Act that prohibited interest-like payments resembling bank deposits while allowing activity-based rewards tied to payments and platform use.
At the time, Reis-Faria said the remaining concern was not the legislation itself but uncertainty over how regulators would implement it. Under the proposal, the SEC, CFTC and Treasury would jointly develop implementing rules within one year after the legislation became law.
JPMorgan had previously described passage of the CLARITY Act by midyear as a positive catalyst for digital asset markets, while Blockchain Association CEO Summer Mersinger said resolving the stablecoin yield debate moved comprehensive market structure legislation closer to becoming law.
Standard Chartered also estimated that allowing unrestricted stablecoin yields could redirect as much as $500 billion in bank deposits by 2028, providing context for the banking industry’s resistance during negotiations.
Company now faces both market and funding pressure
The SEC filing indicates that ZeroStack’s operating cash generation remains closely tied to the performance of the 0G ecosystem through staking income and token sales.
With the market value of its treasury declining substantially from its acquisition cost, management said future liquidity will continue to depend on available cash, staking rewards, token prices, and market liquidity.
Despite outlining those funding options, the company concluded that substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern remains in place for the coming year.
Galaxy Research head Alex Thorn warned early Monday that a fourth coordinated attack wave is likely targeting Coldcard users.
The random number generator (RNG) exploit has been linked to 1,367.05 Bitcoin (BTC) from 4,585 addresses across three confirmed waves. A verified fourth wave would push totals higher.
Coldcard Exploit Deepens as Suspected Fourth Wave Sweeps Over 380 Bitcoin
Thorn identified 218 transactions between blocks 960,778 and 960,792, moving over 380 BTC from 462 suspected victim addresses to 210 fresh destinations. Sweeps ran at 13.8 per block, roughly 45 times the pre-incident rate of 0.3.
The transactions matched the pattern of vulnerable Coldcard addresses, with some funds already swept to second-hop wallets.
“These are LIKELY Coldcard victims — they match the shape of coldcard vulnerable utxos and the elevated transaction pattern gives me high confidence they are another wave of attacks,” Thorn said.
The executive added that similar transactions remain pending in the mempool with replace-by-fee (RBF) enabled. RBF lets the sender replace an unconfirmed Bitcoin transaction with a higher-fee version. In some cases, this allows a victim to outbid an attacker’s competing transaction before either is confirmed.
Per Onchain Lens, confirmed losses stand at $88.6 million. Earlier waves drained individual holders in minutes, including one Canadian victim who lost $1.6 million.
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Coldcard Destroys Remaining Vulnerable Inventory
Meanwhile, Coldcard said Sunday it halted shipments and destroyed all remaining devices carrying the flawed firmware. Satscard, Opendime, and Tapsigner are unaffected.
The patched firmware protects only newly generated seeds. Users must create a fresh seed and migrate funds. The company also told victims to keep affected devices as its legal team coordinates with law enforcement.
“We’ve also been in direct contact with the wider hardware wallet and self-custody community, including other builders, researchers, and people who’ve thought hard about this kind of failure. All have graciously offered whatever resources they could spare. We are still engaged in this outreach and are committing to work with the broader industry going forward,” the team said.
The incident has already drawn warnings from CZ about hardware wallet risk. Whether wave 4 gains confirmation, and whether pending fee races rescue funds, may decide the final toll.
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The post Coldcard Bitcoin Exploit Enters Fourth Wave With 462 New Suspected Victims appeared first on BeInCrypto.
Bitcoin started the week just below $63,000, with Friday’s U.S. jobs report the biggest macro event likely to determine whether the July rebound continues, though developments in Iran may take on greater significance in the coming days.
A muted rise in U.S. hiring could be the best outcome for risk assets like crypto. Such a rise would ease fears of an economic slowdown, but wouldn’t push the Federal Reserve closer to raising interest rates.
IG market analyst Tony Sycamore said a gain of around 88,000 jobs with unemployment unchanged at 4.2% would strike that balance in a “Goldlocks-type print.”
The U.S. government’s borrowing plans are another macro focus. JPMorgan strategist Jay Barry said the Treasury is likely to keep its regular debt sales unchanged, which would avoid adding pressure to interest rates. Larger-than-expected sales could raise borrowing costs for households and companies and weigh on crypto.
Traders will also watch earnings from Circle, Galaxy, Block and six bitcoin miners. BIP-110, a proposal to temporarily limit non-financial data stored on the Bitcoin blockchain, is expected to enter its required miner-signaling period.
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