I’ve been weighing the past couple of days events. People lost real money. Lifetime savings in some cases. They believed their bitcoin was safely held in a cold storage solution that many agreed was the best. They did everything right...and still lost.
The pain/anger is legitimate and deep. No technical explanation or apology will help it. Those affected deserve space to feel angry, scared, and betrayed. I won’t try to talk anyone out of those feelings.
At the same time, we should not automatically discount NVK’s years worth of work in the bitcoin space. Coinkite spent a long time building tools that many of us trusted precisely because they were serious about security and sovereignty.
Even a catastrophic mistake does not erase that body of work. Anyone with the courage to build in public will eventually, fail in public. Stones are easy to throw in this case, and impossible to defend...I get that.
Rage is understandable, but undesirable. Exile should be reserved only for malicious behavior. And i dont think this is the case. We need conscientious builders. Especially talented ones that have been humbled by mistakes.
For those who lost funds: I’m sorry. Truly.
For everyone else: let’s keep the focus on helping victims migrate remaining coins safely and on learning what this failure teaches us about entropy, open-source review, and the limits of any single device.
Im trying to devise a way to help organize a way to help compensate victims of this theft with a zap-athon style push, but need help with the implementation.
If we really are a community, we should seek to help those affected first, then talk about how we move forward.
Thank you to
@BTC SessionsFor all the time they have put in the last couple of days to do just that.
