If you’re using ledger then you’re already sitting on a time bomb..

Well, any thing beyond entropy would likely need your wallet to be  actively connected to the internet.. otherwise, you’re safe with a cold storage in that aspect. If you don’t have that , consider migrating.

As for the entropy issue ,  you can should consider extending your wallet with a passphrase or Multisig [if you’re comfortable with it.. otherwise, you can focus on passphrase ], that should serve.

I do not agree with this because Trezor and Ledger Nano takes almost 65% of the total hardware wallets that are sold while Ledger is sold than Trezor. Ledger is having like 37% of it but which you also said it is not a good hardware wallet which I will also accept.

Keystone takes around 4%, BitBox takes around 3%, Passport takes less than 1% but they are good hardware wallets.

It is not about the hardware wallets that are sold most.

If the unsafeness on the Cold card wallet was not noticed by the developers for 5 years, we in this forum certainly cannot know the real safeness of these other hardware wallets. We will only need to trust the people who created these devices.

Also, there is this very headshaking news hehehehe.



Unlike the FTX collapse, the $89 million Coldcard exploit has investors sending bitcoin back to exchanges

Security issues in the crypto market often push investors in predictable directions. For instance, following the collapse of the FTX exchange in November 2022, investors rushed to withdraw large volumes of coins from centralized platforms and move them into self-custody solutions, including hardware wallets and personal devices.

Now they are doing the opposite by moving coins to exchanges, as the ongoing multi‑million‑dollar Coldcard hardware‑wallet incident, which began Friday, has raised fresh questions about the safety of self‑custody.

Read in full https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2026/08/02/unlike-the-ftx-collapse-the-usd88-million-coldcard-exploit-has-investors-sending-bitcoin-back-to-exchanges

Surprisingly most hardware wallet advertise as safe haven for crypto to store the funds but since the recent issue I umderstand the OP question. Honestly to answer how to know if they arent safe is when they establish some red flags based om technical people. Non tech user can only rely to that as basis and plausible recommendation.

Solutions can be spreading your bitcoin storage into some wallets that are from different brands, either hardware wallets or software wallets, only choose biggest and most trusted brands.

Like Bitcoin Core, Electrum with software wallets
Like Trezor with hardware wallets

Use strong passphrase
Set up and use multisig wallets

With the hack on Coldcard hardware wallets, I am thinking about risk with people who have to trust Bitcoin Spot ETFs, trust custodians like Coinbase. Trust third parties in Bitcoin storage is very dangerous.

If I'm non-technical I think I'd be having PTSD over this, but I think not rashing on anything or monitor the situation is best thing to do and bitcointalk is the right place for that to reduce the noise. You're fine as long as you have no balance or never used COLDCARD.

However, this recent event definitely shattered trust on hardware wallets. I'm thinking is there a way you make your own hardware or software wallet or just use open source? What are the pros and cons if I make my own?

This is not any surprise I don’t take it as anything it’s simply just people panicking and nothing more, they moved their bitcoins out of centralized wallet to self custodial wallets when bybit was compromised last year and this is another round circle movement which is actually based on fear and nothing more.

I will rather have trust on many people verifying a wallet code (open source) than trusting a wallet which only the owners can verify.

But to be sincere, I don’t see the difference between someone using closed source wallets with someone using centralized exchanges, To be more brutal they are even better off with ETF because all three are in one category which is blindly trusting the institution or manufacturer


The create your own cold/offline  wallet remains the best option until date for me. Just get an airgapped device and then use electrum in offline mode or any reputable open source wallet and then create your seed phrase, add passphrase and then broadcast your  transaction from watch only software wallets.

PROS: you’re not trusting anybody but rather yourself.
CONS: the point of failure is your set up wasn’t actually offline, you might have used a bad device which is not totally cold device

I used my hardware wallet once to test, that was it. Never used it again, just a no no for me.
Paper wallet engraved in steel (alu) plate is still the best after all those years.  
People who talk it bad are most likely the once profiting from the cold wallet exploits.
https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoin-wallet/paper/

Coldcard is not an open source wallet, it is close source but it is reproducible

You can also use passphrase if multisig look difficult to have.

It is also good to stop using any close source wallet. I saw a post that dkbit98 complained about the wallet, that people should not use it again, but many people can see similar post but they will not listen.