Canada’s largest crypto exchange will not be able to pay customers back
About QuadrigaCX:
QuadrigaCX is a crypto exchange founded in early 2014 by a parent company called “Quadriga Fintech Solutions”.The parent company was founded some months earlier in late 2013 by Gerald Cotten. Both companies are based in canada. Gerald, not only the founder but also the CEO of both companies remained in his position until his death in December 2018.
What Happened?
Gerald was a privacy freak. He took many steps to ensure the at-most security of his company. His laptop which he used to do all of his business is encrypted and the only one that knew the key to decrypt it is Gerald. All of the wallets for all of the cryptocurrencies are stored and encrypted on Gerald’s laptop. This resulted in a loss of ~26,000BTC, ~11,000BCH , 200,000LTC and ~400,000ETH, amounting in a loss of more than 139 Million USD to date.
Speculations:
Some people are speculating that the company has exit scammed. There are many theories behind this, some claim that the death has been faked which is very unlikely and others say that the employees of the company have access to the wallets but are claiming that they are encrypted. There is no evidence to prove any of this speculations right.
The QuadrigaCX site is no longer accessible. ‘quadrigacx.com’ just redirects users to a message from the Board of Directors. The company said that unless they find a way to decrypt the laptop they are not going to be able offer their customers any refunds.
