KABOOM! …and the millions are gone! or How traders are trying to pull their money back from another world?
The story of Gerald Cotten, a 30-year-old owner of QuadrigaCX, Canada’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, fires the imagination. The man, whose name hadn’t been often shown in the search engine results, became famous in the whole world…right after he suddenly died last year from complications from Crohn’s disease. Sad news indeed, but there’s more to it.
It turned out that Cotten had taken the encrypted access to all crypto investors’ money to the grave — almost $ 200 million, no less. It’s been two months since Kotten passed, and it seems that the exchange’s customers grieve over their missing funds rather than over Quadriga founder’s unfortunate death. The inconsolable Cotten’s widow Jennifer Robertson, tried to find passwords and gain access to her dead spouse’s email account, but in vain.
Dying in style
But let’s start from the very beginning. Cotten died on December 9, 2018 in India, having signed a will, according to which all of his property, a house, a plane, a boat, a car, and two pet Chihuahuas were left to his wife. Looks like he’d foreseen his imminent demise. After Cotton’s death, the exchange’s customers, in anticipation of something bad coming, hurried to withdraw funds from their accounts, but it wasn’t to be. Over $190 million of customers’ assets were stored in a “cold wallet”on an encrypted laptop. Only Cotton kicked the bucket, forgetting to mention the passwords to the cold storage in his will. Best hackers attempted to hack into Gerald’s computer, but they have not been able to access it so far.
Not so many people die from Crohn’s disease. It spawned conspiracy theories which call into question whether Cotten is really dead. For their own comfort, some of the investors believe that he orchestrated his death and walked away with millions in cryptocurrency. The publication of his Indian death certificate only fueled skepticism. Quadriga’s customers just don’t buy it.
Something smells fishy
One may think, that all these conspiracy theories are nothing more than the crypto traders’ attempts at self-consolation, their way to deal the loss of money. But something just doesn’t quite add up. In his interview filmed in 2015 Cotton talks up Quadriga’s security system, claiming that it uses multi-signature cold storage to secure the exchange’s Bitcoin holdings. You got it right, multi-signature, meaning that in case access to one of the keys are lost, the others can be used to access the funds. If Cotten’s keys died with him, why can’t the funds be retrieved with the other keys?
Apparently there’s more to this story. According to anonymous reports, the amount of BTC currently stored by QuadrigaCX is significantly less than what Cotten’s wife reported (or is it?). Besides, it looks like the exchange was using customer funds to pay out other customers asking to withdraw their money. The latest speculation suggests that Quadriga has been moving its funds after Cotten’s death while the exchange claims they can’t regain access. All these fishy facts support wild theories that one can’t simply die of Crohn’s and just so happen to leave a fortune to his two Chihuahuas just 2 weeks before death.
If Cotten died on December 9, why wasn’t his death announced until January 31? Apart from the death certificate, doctors from the hospital India where Cotten allegedly passed didn’t provide additional details or any proof whatsoever that the diseased was in fact Gerald Cotten. Another coincidence or an ideal exit scam?
Until the specialists take the DNA sample and provide confirmation that the body (if there was any) did belong to Cotten, a sudden death of QuadrigaCX’s CEO is highly questionable and looks more like an elaborate escape plan. Meanwhile, the Canadian funeral home provided a statement of death on December 12, confirming that it had held a funeral service on December 14 in Halifax (Nova Scotia, Canada).
Heist of century?
Now, let’s look at the numbers: 26,500 BTC, 11,000 BCH, 11,000 BSV, 430,000 ETH, 200,000 LTC, and 25,000 BTG — quite the sum, enough to live out the rest of your life comfortably and provide for your spouse and two dogs, don’t you think?
From various news sources we know, that Gerald went to India to open an orphanage, a “safe refuge for children in need”. What a philanthropic and generous gesture, only that Cotten hadn’t been known for his charity work before and the orphanage he allegedly opened wasn’t found on the map.
Some evidence showed activity in Quadriga’s Litecoin cold wallets (supposedly frozen) after Cotten’s death. Creepy, huh? Or is it some miracle resurrection — a man came back from the dead to move some funds around?
Conspiracy or not, the one lesson all crypto holders should learn from this saga — never keep your crypto tokens on an exchange wallet.
