Coldcard Attack Triggers Highest Small BTC Transfers Since FTX, Approximately 39,600 BTC Transferred in a Single Day
The Coldcard wallet hacking incident continues to escalate, leading to a significant increase in small Bitcoin transfer activities, reaching the highest level since the FTX collapse.
According to CryptoQuant's research director Julio Moreno, the number of transfers below 1 BTC has surged to the highest level since November 2022, with approximately 39,600 BTC transferred in a single day, just about 300 BTC shy of the record set days after FTX's bankruptcy, as users actively respond to risks.
On-chain Bitcoin and self-custody markets are witnessing rapid fund migration driven by security incidents, with the surge in small transfers reflecting actions by individual holders; exchanges and custodial services may see inflows, while trust in hardware self-custody is under pressure, reinforcing discussions on risk prevention.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
After the Coldcard firmware vulnerability led to large-scale theft, users urgently migrated funds, creating a peak in on-chain small transfers, highly reminiscent of the panic migration pattern following the FTX collapse in 2022; CryptoQuant data captures this retail-driven behavior, continuing the historical trend of increased on-chain activity triggered by security crises.
In terms of capital flow, individual holders are moving funds from potentially compromised cold wallets to exchanges or new wallets, shifting resources from static self-custody to more liquid channels; the motivation is to avoid ongoing attack risks, prioritizing the preservation of principal over maintaining the original holding structure.
Similar migration waves can be observed following past hardware wallet or exchange hacking incidents, as well as the large-scale withdrawals by retail investors during the FTX event. Currently, Bitcoin self-custody is in a phase of "behavior reset triggered by a trust crisis."
Structural judgment belongs to technical substitution: when specific hardware security assumptions are broken, user behavior shifts from "long-term cold storage" to "quickly transferable," with on-chain small activities becoming immediate signals for risk pricing, and pricing power tilting towards platforms that can provide instant liquidity.
ABAB News · Cognitive Laws
Security crises can instantly activate on-chain migration
Peaks in small transfers are a thermometer for retail panic
The true test of self-custody comes after vulnerabilities are exposed