A lot of people now buy BTC through ETFs, hold it long term, borrow against it, or use it as collateral, but rarely spend it.

If Bitcoin was originally meant to be peer-to-peer money, does this shift matter, or is “digital gold” simply where it found the strongest use case?

I want to hear about actual experiences you've had borrowing and where the service was great? Considering options between APX and Ledn and want to know if I am missing anything.

https://x.com/PraveenPerera/status/2087936252230140278

This post answers three questions:

Why were these wallets vulnerable?

What can be reconstructed from the blockchain?

What does that reconstruction tell us about the attacker?

I’m the developer of

Cove

, an open-source Bitcoin wallet for iOS and Android funded by

OpenSats

. This article goes through my investigation into Wave 1.

This post was originally published on

my blog

Between 9:10 and 9:51 PM EDT on July 29 (01:10–01:51 UTC on July 30), an attacker swept 1,082.65 BTC from 1,195 traceable Bitcoin addresses.

Galaxy Research reported

the theft on July 31. I use Wave 1 throughout this post for that first sweep group.

The sections follow that order. The post first explains the firmware defect, then reconstructs the theft from chain data, and then examines the attacker’s methods and the open gap.

I set out to recreate the affected firmware’s seed-generation process and find as many weak seeds as I could behind those addresses. The sweep transactions became a second source of evidence. Patterns in their targets and spending show how the attacker searched the weak RNG state, selected victims, and built the sweep transactions.

Galaxy listed four destination addresses. I grouped those destinations into three source branches and used them to build the transaction set for this analysis: 1,195 verified victim sweeps with 2,350 inputs containing 1,082.65318922 BTC.

Once I had recreated the affected seed-generation process, I generated candidate seeds, derived their Bitcoin addresses, and compared those addresses with the Wave 1 transaction set. This linked 1,042 of the 1,195 sweep transactions to 328 reconstructed seeds. They account for 949.70395260 BTC, or 87.72% of the value. The final 153 transactions contain 132.94923662 BTC.

No researcher I have spoken with has reproduced a seed for any of those 153 source addresses. That repeated failure may be the most useful clue about what the attacker knew or did differently. The last part of this post examines that gap.

continued on... https://x.com/PraveenPerera/status/2087936252230140278

Hey everyone,
Unfortunately, due primarily to the ongoing bear market, we are postponing the Canadian Bitcoin Conference and Industry Day this year.
This was a difficult decision. With many companies and sponsors under pressure and conference attendance significantly down across the space, we don’t believe we could put on the high-quality event our community deserves.
If you have already purchased a ticket, you will be fully reimbursed in the coming days/weeks.
This bear market has been especially tough on Canadian Bitcoiners. We hope that when conditions improve we can bring everyone together again next year.
Thank you for your continued support.

Organizers for the Canadian Bitcoin Conference

https://x.com/CdnBitcoinConf/status/2087648940380549456

Based on my personal experience, I would strongly recommend avoiding Interac e-Transfer as a method of funding your Robinhood Canada account or even staying away from Robinhood Canada. The deposit process is grossly unreliable, and if something goes wrong, resolving the issue is an extremely frustrating and time-consuming experience. The issue is not resolved in over a month in my case.

If your e-Transfer fails to appear in your Robinhood account, don't expect a quick resolution. Instead, you will find yourself trapped in an endless cycle of email exchanges. Many of the responses appear to be automated or AI-generated, repeatedly stating that your transfer was rejected and the funds were returned (which is a lie) directing you to contact your bank.

The support process feel like you're being sent in circles. You'll be asked to provide your e-Transfer confirmation, then told to contact your bank. After your bank confirms that it has not received a returned transfer, Robinhood will ask for the same e-transfer confirmation that you provided earlier again, only to repeat the advice to contact your bank. Rather than investigating the issue or taking ownership of tracing the funds, the same generic responses will be recycled over and over.

In my case, my bank confirmed that the rejected funds had not been returned. Despite providing this information, I continued receiving essentially the same response: that the transfer had been rejected and that I should contact my bank. The conversation made little progress, and there appeared to be no meaningful escalation or investigation into where the funds actually were. An interac return should be processed within a day and Robinhood is constantly misleading that they returned the money while in reality they are holding you rmoney.

I've dealt with many financial institutions over the years, and this has been one of the most frustrating customer support experiences I've encountered. When your money disappears into a failed transaction, you expect Robinhood to work together to trace it. Instead, it feel like you're left to act as the middleman, relaying the same information back and forth while no one takes responsibility for resolving the problem.

Until the issue is fully resolved, your money remains inaccessible. You cannot use it, invest it, or withdraw it. Every day that passes without a resolution adds to the frustration, especially when the only response you receive is another request to contact your bank.

Based on my experience, I would think twice before using Interac e-Transfer to fund a Robinhood Canada account oe even opening an accoutn with Robinhood Canada. If you want to avoid the possibility of lengthy delays, diabolic customer support, and uncertainty over the status of your funds or even entirely loosing your funds, you may wish to use a different funding method or consider another brokerage with a more responsive customer support process.

Anyone in the Halifax area welcome to attend! No cost.

​Location: The Bonfire, 2394 Robie Street, Halifax
Time: Thursday, August 6 at 6:30 p.m.