The shocking news about the loss of funds of the largest Canadian exchange QuadrigaCX did not spread quickly. It’s just hard to believe that the sudden death of the CEO made all funds in the cold wallets of the exchange unavailable, for a total of $ 190 M.
Passwords to cold wallets: There are irreplaceable persons!
Sad news about the death of Gerald William Cotten, CEO of the QuadrigaCX exchange at the beginning of December 2018, passed almost unnoticed. He died of Crohn’s disease (severe intestinal illness) while in India. Those who have been to India know that it is easy to catch an intestinal infection there. Sorry for the guy – thought many. But this it.
Real sadness came when it was discovered that Gerald Cotten was the only password keeper to the cold wallets of the exchange. According to various sources, there was a crypto of users in the amount of $ 145 M or even $ 190 M. According to the exchange data, about 115 K users kept their balance sheets on the exchange, cryptocurrency (180 M Canadian dollars, CAD = $ 136 M) and fiat (70 M CAD = $ 53 M). There are 26,500 BTC, 11,000 BCH, 11,000 BSV, 35,000 BTG, 200,000 LTC and 430,000 ETH stored on the wallets of the exchange. It is clear why for a long time the death of a CEO was considered a staged event. But in the end a screen of death certificate from Rajasthan appeared in Internet.
And affidavit by his widow Jennifer Robertson. Now, when the facts were confirmed, users could start to require their money. But did not have time. The company went to court to protect against creditors in order to avoid bankruptcy.
It’s better to be safe than sorry
By itself, the situation seems to fit normally into corporate rules and is even humanly understandable. Well, who thinks about death in 30 years? Therefore, with the keys it happened so. Widow Jennifer Robertson stated that Cotten’s work notebook is encrypted: “I don’t know the password or recovery key. Despite repeated and diligent searches, I could not find them anywhere else”. The company hired hackers to hack a laptop, but at least some of the cryptocurrencies still “may be lost,” according to Robertson.