Crypto Brief: Coldcard Theft Balloons to $88M as Exchange Deposits Spike, Old BTC Moves

Latest reporting indicates that a suspected third wave of Coldcard-related bitcoin sweeps has pushed the observed incident to an estimated 1,367 BTC, while trading platform deposits and long-dormant wallet activity have added two more signals for analysts to watch.

Galaxy Research disclosed on X that the three suspected waves drained about 4,585 addresses and captured bitcoin worth approximately $88.6 million at the time of its analysis.

The research group cautioned that its findings are preliminary and based entirely on publicly available Bitcoin blockchain data.

Another dashboard called Coldcard Sweep Watch is placing the theft at 1,158.8480 BTC at 5 p.m.

According to Galaxy’s researchers, the first wave was the largest, sweeping 1,082.65 BTC from 1,195 addresses in 41 minutes on July 30.

A second operation collected 76.16 BTC from 1,478 addresses the following day.

The third wave stretched from July 31 into Aug.

That third operation did not look like a simple continuation of the first two.