VerifiedX Vaults Give Owners a Way to Call Back and Recover Stolen Bitcoin in an Era of Billion-Dollar Hacks

Last week’s record hack took more than 18,000 Bitcoin. VerifiedX Vaults give owners of Bitcoin held as vBTC time to call back a compromised transfer and recover their assets, with no separate custodian and no need to go offline

NEW YORK, Nov. 05, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- VerifiedX (verifiedx.io) today released a new version of its recovery Vaults, which let owners call back hacked or mistakenly sent Bitcoin held as vBTC before final settlement, as part of its Mainnet 9.0.0 upgrade.

Institutions, everyday users and integrated platforms can activate a Vault with their Bitcoin in vBTC, VerifiedX’s self-custodial asset pegged 1:1 to Bitcoin. Inside a Vault, an owner can call back a mistaken or compromised transfer before final settlement and recover assets to a self-custodial address the owner defines. The rules are enforced on chain by network consensus. The new version runs on Mainnet 9.0.0, a hardening upgrade that embeds independently validated Bitcoin consensus state in the VerifiedX network, making the system more Bitcoin-native; its information about Bitcoin now comes directly from the Bitcoin network, with no oracle or third party.

In last week’s major crypto hack, the largest of all time, more than 18,000 Bitcoin were stolen. Within hours, stablecoin issuers had frozen billions of dollars of stolen tokens. But nobody can freeze Bitcoin. A Bitcoin transaction, once settled, is irreversible. That finality is one of blockchain's great strengths, but it becomes one of its great vulnerabilities when an attacker obtains the authority to start a valid transaction.

A VerifiedX Vault puts a programmable period of time between the start of a transaction and its final settlement. The owner defines that window and can use it to spot a mistaken or compromised transfer and invoke the Vault's protection before settlement. The owner keeps control, and the protocol enforces the protection.

"Digital assets have operated under the assumption that if someone successfully obtains the authority to move an asset, the security battle is essentially over," said Jay Pollak, head of strategy at VerifiedX. "We don't think that is an acceptable end state for a financial system responsible for protecting potentially trillions of dollars of value."

"Self-custody and even third-party custody should not mean being one mistake, one compromised credential or one malicious transaction away from catastrophe," Pollak added. "The owner should control the asset, but the owner should also be able to define the rules that protect it and have the ability to recover when all else fails. That's what VerifiedX Vaults are designed to do."

The same window is designed to protect against other disasters: a compromised credential, an employee's mistake, malware that initiates a transaction, an address entered incorrectly. In each case, the owner should have more options than watching the transaction settle permanently.

For years crypto owners have largely faced a tradeoff: keep assets in cold storage for greater isolation, or keep them accessible so they can actually be used. VerifiedX designed the Vault to eliminate much of that friction by bringing cold-storage-like protections into an active self-custodial system. An owner can protect value inside a Vault and stay in the same environment used to store, transfer and program assets, without moving them to a disconnected hardware device each time.

How a Vault works

A Vault's rules are defined by the owner and enforced on chain by consensus. No centralized recovery party needs to take possession of the assets, and no separate custodian is required to create the protection.

A Vault offers:

• Time-locked transactions, with a custom date and time for future settlement
• Callback protection for mistaken and compromised transfers
• One-click asset recovery under the owner's control
• Self-custodial recovery addresses defined by the owner
  
  

The protections apply to vBTC (BTC), VerifiedX’s native coin VFX, and all network-minted assets.

What Mainnet 9.0.0 changes

The upgrade changes the architecture underneath Vaults. It embeds independently validated Bitcoin consensus state directly in VerifiedX’s own consensus. VerifiedX validators now run Bitcoin light-client software and independently validate Bitcoin's chain progression and proof of work. They verify block headers, transaction inclusion and confirmation depth before the VerifiedX state tree recognizes any change that depends on Bitcoin. On mainnet, the Bitcoin transactions supporting the system must be buried under six confirmations. Bitcoin state, balances and UTXOs, the individual coin records on Bitcoin’s ledger, come directly from the Bitcoin network, with no oracle, third party or off-chain attestation.

Bitcoin-related state is then reflected in VerifiedX consensus and its state tree. That provides real-time network accounting and auditability while preserving the relationship to the underlying Bitcoin UTXOs, and the Bitcoin never leaves its ecosystem. The principle: Don't ask the owner to trust another layer of infrastructure when the network itself can enforce the rules.

What vBTC is

Verified Bitcoin (vBTC) is how the protections reach Bitcoin. Bitcoin minted into vBTC can be used within the VerifiedX ecosystem while keeping a 1:1 self-custodial evergreen peg to Bitcoin, with native Bitcoin redemption at all times. The same framework protects VFX and tokenized or minted assets on the network. Individuals, institutions, third-party platforms and autonomous financial intelligence therefore don't need a fragmented collection of wallets, hardware devices and disconnected financial systems to separate safe capital from usable capital.

About VerifiedX

VerifiedX is a native layer 1 and financial operating system for Bitcoin and intelligent assets, enabling self-custodial ownership, instant settlement, programmable finance, native Bitcoin utility, and agentic financial infrastructure. Through products including vBTC, BFLY, and PulseXAI, VerifiedX connects institutions, users, and autonomous systems through a unified blockchain ecosystem framework.

Its ecosystem includes:

• vBTC & vBTC.b (BTC)
• BFLY payments and click-to-earn infrastructure
• SwitchBlade wallet technology
• PulseXAI generative and tokenized intelligence
• Institutional settlement architecture
• Consensus-driven programmability
• Canonical interoperability systems
• Callback and Recovery self-custodial Vault technology
  
  

Further VerifiedX Inquiries:

Website: verifiedx.io
vBTC Visualizer: vbtc.verifiedx.io
Discord: discord.gg/7cd5ebDQCj
X: x.com/vfxblockchain
GitHub: github.com/verifiedxblockchain
Email: info@verifiedx.io

PulseXAI and BFLY are trademarks of VerifiedX. Copyright 2026 VerifiedX. All rights reserved.

Forward-Looking Statements / Disclaimer: Certain statements in this release, including statements regarding future integrations, custody arrangements, borrowing and lending products and other future functionality, are forward-looking and subject to change. Availability of vBTC and related services may vary by jurisdiction, platform and applicable regulatory requirements.

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/5107c1a0-6c46-4ac0-bba1-215e5f14dcbb