New Evidence Ties Coinkite CTO to Unheeded RNG Warning Ahead of 1,800+ BTC Theft
AI Market Summary
Reports alleging Coinkite's CTO authored and ignored warnings about a suspicious LibNgU RNG implementation tied to the COLDCARD entropy failure revive counterparty and supply-chain risk concerns in self-custody hardware. If accurate, the narrative reinforces security and governance risks around wallet firmware provenance and auditability, potentially weighing on near-term crypto sentiment via trust shock rather than protocol-level Bitcoin fundamentals.
Impact level
● Medium
Affected assets
BTC/USDT+0.37%
AI Insight · BTC/USDTAI Insight
▼ Bearish
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Odaily Planet Daily reports that researchers have uncovered new evidence indicating the anonymous "switck" account behind portions of the LibNgU code may be Peter Gray, Coinkite's cofounder and CTO. The LibNgU code sits at the center of the COLDCARD entropy failure incident.
According to the researchers, Gray's GPG key signed dozens of commits attributed to "switck," and additional identifiers are said to connect the two identities.
Bitcoin developer James O'Beirne said he warned Coinkite in May 2025 that LibNgU's RNG implementation looked suspicious and recommended removing it. He added that the response suggested any problem should already have been detected. Screenshots also indicate users had questioned the LibNgU rewrite as early as April 2021.
If confirmed, the findings would imply that the engineer who introduced the code was later linked to the theft of more than 1,800 BTC and had received direct warnings about the RNG implementation over a year before the vulnerability was publicly disclosed. (Bitcoin News)
