Bitcoin Fear Reaches Record High as Coldcard Exploit Shakes Confidence in Self-Custody

The Coldcard firmware exploit has reignated concerns about the security of hardware wallets and self-custody. Although Bitcoin has gone through countless phases of massive fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD), the current crisis around Coldcard has triggered the worst wave of fear ever recorded on crypto social media channels. So far, BTC has been able to weather the storm in terms of price moves to a large extent, even though it has slipped by a few grand. However, it appears that those losses are largely connected to other factors, such as the escalating tension in the Middle East. Fear Through the Roof Data provided by the analytics company Santiment Intelligence shows that Bitcoin has registered its lowest positive-to-negative commentary ratio since the firm began tracking such discussions across some of the most used platforms like X, Reddit, and Telegram. The current numbers show just 0.58 bullish comments for every bearish one, indicating that fear has overwhelmingly replaced optimism. What’s even more intriguing is that this reaction is quite unusual since it has dwarfed all previous market shocks, including the rapid collapse of FTX, Mt. Gox, and the COVID-19 “Black Thursday...