QuadrigaCX

admin 9 min read

Canada’s largest crypto exchange collapsed when news suddenly broke of its founder Gerald Cotten’s unexpected death during a trip to India. He had claimed that only he held the passcodes to all customer Bitcoins.

QuadrigaCX

Launch
2013
Death / Exploit
December 2018
Total Loss
$190 Million

It was later revealed that the passcodes were not missing—he was actually hiding fraud and had lost the customer coins by trading them on other exchanges.

Lesson

Cold storage claims can mask fraud: Executive secrecy often hides heavy trading losses and stolen customer funds rather than secure storage.

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