Not Your Keys, Not Your Coins — The Quadriga Conundrum And How INF Could Have Helped

Take care of your private keys and don’t hold any substantial amount of crypto assets at exchanges. Both are sound advices, yet sometimes we tend to overlook things like that and we misplace our private keys or leave our crypto funds for an unnecessary long time in an exchange’s wallet.

The recent death of QuadrigaCX CEO Gerald Cotten means that about $140 million worth of cryptocurrency could be lost forever, locked behind irretrievable private keys because he was the only one who had them. And that money belonged to the investors. The problem could have been easily solved with the use of Infinitus as a backup plan!

What We Know So Far

In mid-January, crypto exchange QuadrigaCX announced that Founder and CEO Gerald Cotten died a month prior. According to court fillings, the company mentioned that its CEO was the only person who knew about the private keys and passwords for the company’s cold storage wallets, thus his death makes the funds totally inaccessible.

Court documents further show that QuadrigaCX holds approximately 26,500 Bitcoins, 11,000 Bitcoin Cash, 35,000 Bitcoin Gold, 11,000 Bitcoin SV, 200,000 Litecoin and 430,000 Ether. All of that is now locked behind the indestructible wall of cryptography and blockchain’s inherent security. As we’ve stated many times before, blockchain’s safety can be a double-edged sword because the same principles and algorithms that make it secure, can also keep out the owner if he or she loses the private key. And if the owner dies unexpectedly, the funds are lost to the members of the family.

The QuadrigaCX event is the perfect example of that, albeit it’s a bit more complicated because in this case, the funds in the cold wallets didn’t belong to the person who died or to his family, but to company investors. And to make things even spikier, some conspiracy theorists speculate that Cotten is not actually dead and that he faked his own death.

Adding fuel to the conspiracy theory fire, the CEO filed a will just 12 days before his death, leaving all his assets to his wife Jennifer Robertson. Coincidence or evildoing? We are not here to give a definitive answer. How could we? The point is that every crypto currency user should have a failsafe mechanism in place, a Plan B for lost keys and even for transferring said keys in case of loss of life. It’s very important to raise awareness and relate the importance of keeping the private keys safe and that is part of the Infinitus mission.

A simple Infinitus vault worth 1 US Dollar ( at the time of writing) or less would have fixed the entire problem. In fact, the problem wouldn’t have existed in the first place if the private key would have been backed up with Infinitus. According to reports, Cotten wanted to be the only one with access to Quadriga’s cold storage wallets but he could have still maintained this status even if he would have stored the keys with INF. Typing the private key or password into the INF dapp doesn’t mean it is somehow transferred for safekeeping to Infinitus, or to some cloud storage. No, it means it is stored on the blockchain and the Infinitus team doesn’t have access to it. Or anyone else, except for the designated receiver. And considering that Cotten left all his assets to his wife, it’s clear that he wanted her in control after his death.

Spending A Buck Goes A Long Way

Clearing up the speculation and mystery surrounding the death of QuadrigaCX CEO is not Infinitus’ job. Protecting your private keys is! We’ve highlighted multiple times on the importance of being in control of your passwords and keys; and we’ve showed how INF can act as a blockchain will, helping to transfer wealth after the owner passes away. This Quadriga conundrum could have been easily solved if Gerald Cotten would have spent a buck for an INF vault and then placed his private keys there. His wife or other family member would have received the credentials, all the funds would be accessible and all investors would get back their assets.

Remember: not your keys, not your coins. Spending a buck could go a long way in ensuring your peace of mind.