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If you've spent any time on CT in the past few days, you've probably seen a wave of exploit and closure announcements and felt your stomach drop a little.

Here's the thing worth untangling before you let that feeling take over. Blockchain itself is genuinely very hard to break. What gets exploited or goes out of business almost every time is the human-built layer sitting on top of it: the bridges, the protocols, the companies people built to connect everyday users to Bitcoin and crypto. 

Bitcoin's core network isn't what's getting hacked or shut down in these stories. The software and businesses built around it are.

So here's what this issue actually does: walks through what happened, why it's not the same as "Bitcoin is broken," and gives you one real step to protect your own Bitcoin regardless of what any protocol or exchange does.

📝 The Translation

Bitcoin's holding $65,000 support with a big Fed decision one week out. Here's what actually matters in that. 📊

What happened: Bitcoin's sitting near $65,000–$66,000 ahead of the Federal Reserve's July 28–29 meeting, where the Fed will announce its next interest rate decision. Bitcoin ETFs have also seen seven straight days of money flowing in, the longest streak in nine months.

Why it matters: In plain terms, big investors have been quietly buying back in through ETFs after a rough couple of months, and now everyone's waiting to see what the Fed says about interest rates before making a bigger move either way.

The Compass take: A Fed meeting isn't a Bitcoin event. It's a broader event that happens to move every market, including this one. The inflow streak is a good sign of returning confidence, but one week of data isn't a trend worth building a decision around. Watch it. Don't chase it.

Bitcoin's staring down a possible fork on August 7. Here's what that actually means, and whether you need to do anything. ⚠️

What happened: A technical proposal called BIP-110 needs support from about 55% of Bitcoin's mining power to take effect through the normal process. Support has stayed under 1% for months. If that doesn't change, a backup rule kicks in around block 961,632, expected on August 7, where a small minority of the network would start enforcing new rules that most of the network hasn't agreed to, which is the exact setup that can split a blockchain into two competing versions.

Why it matters: A real split, where two separate chains both claim to be "the" Bitcoin, hasn't happened at this scale since 2017. If it happens, it typically creates short-term confusion around exchanges and wallets, not a change in how much Bitcoin you personally hold.

The Compass take: We flagged this fight in the last issue when Michael Saylor came out against it. Since then, opposition has only grown, and support for forcing it through has stayed under 1%, which points toward this failing to lock in rather than actually splitting the chain. We're watching it closely, and if it turns into something you need to act on before August 7, we'll tell you directly. Right now, it isn't.

A once-dominant Bitcoin mining company just filed for bankruptcy. It's a story about mining costs, not about Bitcoin itself. 📉

What happened: Poolin, a company that was the largest Bitcoin mining pool in the world back in 2019, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, listing $100–500 million in liabilities. It's now the 17th largest mining pool, holding just 0.2% of the network's mining power.

Why it matters: Mining pools are businesses that group miners together. They're not Bitcoin itself, and the network's ability to process transactions doesn't depend on any single company staying open. Several other miners are hitting the same wall this year from rising electricity costs, with some shifting into AI data centers instead.

The Compass take: This is a story about one company's balance sheet, not Bitcoin's health. Mining is consolidating, and some players are struggling, but the network keeps running exactly the same either way. Next time a headline says "Bitcoin miner collapses," read it as a business story first.

⚠️ Beyond Bitcoin — Two exchanges just announced they're shutting down

BitMEX, one of crypto's oldest derivatives exchanges, announced it's closing permanently on September 23, after more than 11 years in operation. Three days later, BitMart, a spot and futures exchange, announced its own wind-down, with trading ending August 26.

Neither company cited a hack or insolvency. Both framed it as a strategic decision, and both happen to be landing on the same shrinking window: mid-sized exchanges squeezed by rising compliance costs and thinning trading fees.

For your Bitcoin, it changes nothing about the network itself. The only thing that matters is whether you personally hold any funds on either platform. If you do, the lesson from every exchange closure is the same one: withdraw early, don't wait for the final deadline, and never trust a message asking for your password or seed phrase during a wind-down, since scams spike exactly during moments like this.

🔐 Security Walkthrough — What these exploits actually mean, and the one thing that protects you from all of them

This week gave us two different versions of the same lesson. Allbridge and Balance Coin got exploited through code that had bugs. BitMEX and BitMart are shutting down through business decisions that had nothing to do with hacks at all. Different causes. Same result for anyone with funds sitting there: access depends entirely on someone else's system staying up and staying honest.

That's the whole idea behind self-custody, and it's worth saying plainly. When your Bitcoin sits on an exchange, you don't actually hold it. You hold a promise from that company that they'll give it back when you ask. Most of the time, that promise gets kept. But this week alone showed two very different ways it can get complicated: a smart contract bug, or a company deciding to close its doors.

A hardware wallet sidesteps both problems entirely, because it doesn't depend on any company's code staying bug-free or any company staying in business. Your keys live on a small physical device, offline, and nothing that happens to protocols and exchanges can touch them.

Here's the pattern underneath all of it: none of these were attacks on Bitcoin. They were attacks on software built by specific teams to do specific jobs, bridges, algorithmic stablecoins, lending protocols. That software has bugs sometimes, the same way any software does. Bitcoin's own network has run for over 16 years without ever being hacked at the protocol level, because it's deliberately simple and doesn't try to do everything.

This is exactly why self-custody matters, and why we keep coming back to it. If your Bitcoin sits on an exchange or inside a protocol, you're trusting that protocol's code to be bug-free. If it sits in your own hardware wallet, none of this week's headlines can touch it, because a hardware wallet doesn't touch any of these systems at all.

Setting one up, in order:

1. Buy directly from the manufacturer's official site, never a marketplace listing or a reseller you can't verify.

2. When it arrives, set a new PIN yourself. If a device comes with a PIN already set, do not use it. Return it.

3. Write down the recovery phrase it generates on paper, never a photo, never a note app, never typed anywhere.

4. Send a small test amount first before moving anything significant.

5. Only after the test transaction works, move the rest.

If you've got funds sitting on an exchange right now, this is the week to move them. If you've been holding Bitcoin on an exchange since our first issue and you're ready for the next step, Tangem, currently one of the most trending hardware wallets this year, is one option worth a look.

🔭 The Long View

We've watched exchanges disappear before. Mt. Gox. FTX. Celsius. Different reasons every time, a hack, fraud, a bad bet, and now, sometimes, just a company deciding the math doesn't work anymore. The one thing that's never changed since 2017: the people who held their own keys never had to wonder if their Bitcoin would still be there the next morning.

🧐 Reader's Question

You may be asking: "If hardware wallets are safer, why doesn't everyone just use one?"

Mostly friction. It costs money upfront, and it takes a few extra minutes every time you want to move funds, compared to clicking a button on an exchange app. For small amounts you're actively learning with, that tradeoff might not be worth it yet. For anything you'd genuinely hate to lose, the few minutes of extra effort is the cheapest insurance you'll ever buy.

📌 One Thing To Do

Check where your Bitcoin actually lives right now. If it's sitting on an exchange and you haven't touched it in months, that's your sign to look into moving it into your own custody.

👋🏻 The Close

Weeks like this one can make the whole space feel shakier than it actually is. It's not that Bitcoin broke. It's that a few pieces of software did, and a couple of companies decided to close up shop, and now you know exactly how to make sure none of it ever touches you.

Reply and tell us if you've ever considered a hardware wallet but talked yourself out of it. And if this issue helped, forward it to the friend who still keeps everything on an exchange "for now."

— The Bitcoin Compass
UseTheBitcoin.com · Trusted since 2017

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