Coldcard hack of 168 billion won triggers a surge in Bitcoin mempool activity

The hacking incident involving Coldcard hardware wallets, which began on July 30th, is still ongoing, and the estimated damage is approximately $120 million (roughly 168 billion Korean won). This incident raises two contrasting points. One is a fundamental question about the safety of the self-custody strategy using hardware wallets, which has become popular since the collapse of FTX in 2022. The other is that Bitcoin network activity has significantly increased as holders have moved their coins to exchanges and other wallets. The Bitcoin mempool (unconfirmed transaction queue) has increased sharply since the hacking incident, reaching 89,031 transactions on Tuesday, the highest level since February 2025. This figure, based on data from Blockchain.com, clearly shows the significant increase in activity that began at the end of July. According to Santiment, an on-chain analysis firm, the number of active addresses reached 712,000, a 3-month high, and the number of transactions by whales (large holders) reached 61,800, a 5-month high. This increase in network activity is generally interpreted as a factor supporting the valuation of the underlying cryptocurrency. From a macroeconomic perspective, the passage of the U.S. CLARITY Act in the Senate is considered the biggest short-term variable. Marex analysts point out that there are only three days left before the Senate recesses on August 10th, and the probability of passage by the end of the year has plummeted from approximately 75% in mid-May to the current 23%. They also noted that attempts to add regulations on prediction markets to the bill are creating additional uncertainty. Long-term interest rates are also emerging as a key variable. Bitfinex warned that if the U.S. 10-year real interest rate (adjusted for inflation) exceeds 2.5%, it could undermine the macroeconomic bullish argument for Bitcoin. According to the exchange, there is no historical data to reference, as the 10-year real interest rate has never been above 2.5% before the creation of Bitcoin, and the current rate is 2.41%, just 9 basis points below the threshold. Meanwhile, this article also covers several related issues, including a proposal to reduce the new issuance of Ethereum, a weakening of Bitcoin's relative performance compared to the S&P 500, a sharp 10% drop in SpaceX's stock price, and a 5% decline in international oil prices due to expectations of progress in U.S.-Iran negotiations. The Ethereum side has proposed a plan to burn all validator rewards when the amount of staked ETH reaches half of the total supply, effectively reducing the net issuance to zero, which could increase the long-term scarcity of ETH.