Bitcoin has stayed under pressure as a security scare, softer exchange-traded fund demand, and a notable corporate sale all landed at once. The result is a market that looks less driven by one headline and more by a stack of overlapping negatives.

Wallet flaw fears are damaging confidence

The sharpest near-term concern comes from a vulnerability tied to the Coldcard hardware wallet. Its maker, Coinkite, warned that only users whose seed phrases were created on specific vulnerable firmware versions may face risk, so this is not a universal failure across every device.

Even so, the incident has already moved beyond a narrow technical issue and into a broader trust problem for the market. Reported losses were first placed at almost $40 million in BTC, then climbed after two more attack waves, with cumulative theft reaching 1,367.05 BTC, or about $88.6 million.

• Alex Thorn of Galaxy Digital said a fourth wave appeared to match the pattern of vulnerable Coldcard outputs.
• Thorn described the transaction activity as giving him high confidence that more attacks were underway.
• He also said roughly 449 BTC may still be exposed, and advised affected users to move funds quickly.

The effect is not limited to stolen coins. Santiment reported that Bitcoin’s positive-to-negative sentiment ratio across X, Reddit, and Telegram fell to its lowest level since tracking began, which suggests fear has spread well beyond the immediate set of victims.

ETF flows lost momentum after a short recovery

Spot Bitcoin ETFs offered a brief source of relief, but that bid has not held steadily. June was the weakest month on record for the category, while July opened with nearly $200 million in net inflows during its first week.

That improvement turned uneven as the month went on. Inflows slowed by mid-month, then improved again with seven straight days of net buying between July 14 and July 22, the longest run since April. Since that streak ended, net outflows have returned.

• The recent reversal suggests institutional demand is still present, but less consistent than it was earlier in the month.
• SoSoValue has not yet posted August flow figures, so the newest trend is still incomplete.
• Regulated products from firms such as BlackRock, Fidelity, Bitwise, and Franklin Templeton remain the main route for many conservative allocators.

That matters because spot ETFs are often the preferred option for institutions that want exposure without managing self-custody. When security fears rise at the same time, the appeal of a regulated wrapper can increase, but only if the inflow trend actually holds.

Strategy’s sale added another source of supply

A third pressure point came from Strategy, the company formerly known as MicroStrategy. Michael Saylor said the firm increased its USD Reserve by $250 million and bought back $81 million of STRC shares, but the same announcement also revealed a Bitcoin sale.

Between July 27 and August 2, Strategy sold 1,637 BTC for roughly $105 million. That lowered its holdings from 843,775 BTC to 842,138 BTC.

The reduction is modest relative to the firm’s overall position, but it still matters because Strategy has long been treated as a structural buyer rather than a source of supply. Any sale from that balance sheet can weigh on sentiment, especially when other demand signals are weakening at the same time.

What the price action suggests now

Those three forces line up cleanly with Bitcoin’s recent weakness. The market is dealing with damaged sentiment from the wallet exploit, less convincing ETF demand, and a corporate seller that investors are not used to seeing on the other side of the trade.

• Spot price: about $63,600, according to CoinGecko
• Weekly move: down about 1%
• Seasonal backdrop: August has finished lower in 9 of the past 13 years

Seasonality does not determine the outcome on its own, but it can shape expectations when the tape is already fragile. With security concerns, softer institutional flows, and fresh supply all sitting in the background, Bitcoin may remain vulnerable to more volatility in the near term.