Paranoid Bitcoiners are worried that Bitcoin clocks created by Coinkite, the firm behind recently-hacked hardware wallet Coldcard, could be spying on them.
The Blockclock, which features an electro-mechanical display, can be tweaked to showcase up-to-date Bitcoin prices, exchange data, and various other metrics.
However, with the estimated $130 million Coldcard theft showing no sign of stopping, cautious Bitcoiners are becoming suspicious of the seemingly harmless machines.
Much of this suspicion appears to have been stoked by programmer and Bitcoin enthusiast “Wicked” who warned owners to “unplug” their device “immediately,” with very little by way of explanation.
“If you used your COLDCARD near them I would plan to move your funds out of an abundance of caution,” he said.
Read more: Coldcard hacker’s BTC wallet flooded with on-chain messages
Wicked’s post, whether completely seriousness or not, attracted 50,000 views and led to multiple Blockclock owners following the advice.
The growing paranoia even extended to Coinkite’s CTO Peter Gray, with pro-Bitcoin vintner Ben Justman claiming that, having learned that Gray worked on keylogging and remote computer viewing, he “wouldn’t feel safe” keeping the Blockclock.
“I don’t own a Blockclock and who knows if there’s anything wrong with them, but I personally wouldn’t wanna touch anything that touched Coinkite,” said Justman.
Some posts posited the idea that the Blockclock may contain spyware, a theory that was further fueled by parody account Teddy Bitcoin, which claimed that Blockclocks contain “an authentic high-tech Russian military-grade listening device” called the “Ухо-9,” or “Ear-9.”
“This thing is so advanced it can capture private sounds with insane precision, right down to the exact faint hammering of individual letters into steel plates,” the account wrote.
Some users, understandably, doubted Wicked’s claims, suggesting that the paranoia might be exaggerated and telling the programmer to “calm down.”
Bitcoin Magazine editor Shinobi described the paranoia as “Schizo theories about Coldcards wirelessly communicating seeds to them to phone home.”
Wicked replied to one comment asking if it was legit, saying, “No evidence of anything yet but I’m not risking it anymore.”
He’s since made a partial apology, claiming in an X Spaces that he posted about the Blockclock in a “schizo panic fear,” and that after talking to several people he trusts, “that fire in my mind has been doused.”
“My trust in Coinkite products has obviously been affected by all of this,” Wicked added.
Read more: 15 attackers now draining vulnerable Coldcard wallets, report
Coldcard urged users to move BTC
Coinkite is dealing with the fallout from its weak seed phrase generation system that left several versions of its BTC wallet open to hackers.
The firm has since warned Coldcard users to move their BTC elsewhere or risk being drained.
There have been at least 15 attackers taking advantage of the exploit, which have likely targeted thousands of victim wallets.
Protos has reached out to Coinkite for comment and will update this piece should we hear anything back.
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