Both customers and investigators are at a loss when the CEO of QuadrigaCX died and the digital wallets in his possession were empty. QuadrigaCX was a cryptocurrency exchange that traded Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
Not only was Cotten the only one who had the passwords to the currency storage but was solely responsible for handling the coins. The money was supposed to be in cold storage to protect it from being stolen or hacked. These digital wallets held literally millions of cryptocurrencies and not so much as one coin has recovered.
After Cotten’s death, QuadrigaCX was forced to go out of business and close down. Ernst & Young was appointed to take care of all the details for closing down the business. They had access to his laptop and discovered that the digital wallets had been completely cleaned out a few months before Cotten’s death.
Note: Cotten died from Crohn’s disease in Jaipur where he was going to open an orphanage.
QuadrigaCX held the currency of approximately 115,000 customers and the staff and investigators have no idea what happened to the bitcoins. Ernst & Young are attempting to get information about the trading performed from other accounts to see if they can possibly trace how much crypto cash has gone through these accounts.
It was reported by BBC News, there is a $100,000 reward being offered by a former QuadrigaCX customer for information regarding the location of the company’s cash that has mysteriously disappeared.
Cryptocurrencies exchanges are not regulated and with so many customers using these exchanges to store their coins, they are wide open to fraud. It is strongly advised that anyone who chooses to use these exchanges to store their coins do extensive research and be as diligent as humanly possible.
At this time, it’s very difficult to know if the QuadrigaCX users will ever see their cryptocurrencies ever again. Everyone is hoping the investigators will solve this extraordinary mystery and discover the location of the coins.
