The Quadriga case is getting weirder and weirder with every passing week. 
Now Kraken, the world’s largest bitcoin exchange in euro volume and liquidity, is giving as a reward up to 100,000 USD for any tips that might lead to solving the QuadrigaCX case and the discovery of the missing 190 million US dollars client funds.
On Jananuary 26 QuadrigaCX, a Canadian-based crypto exchange with clients all over the world, suspended operations after the sudden death of QuadrigaCX founder and CEO Gerald Cotten some 7 weeks earlier.
The official version, claimed by QuadrigaCX, is that after Gerald Cotten died in mid December, no one else in the company knows the passwords to access wallets worth 190 mln. USD in Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, among other digital assets.
The locked funds belong to some 115 000 clients and some analysts point out that the events and circumstances surrounding this case are too suspicious, and that the version of QuadrigaCX can not be trusted.
The fact that only one person had the password already shows how that was such a bad move for a company holding that much in funds. That’s an egregious fault in the company and they have a fiduciary responsibility to uphold their clients more importantly. Like you stated QuadrigaCX sounds super shady for this.
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I just keep thinking how this could never happen with a bank. Can you imagine a single bank manager having the only access to client funds? And then passing away and no one else being able to do anything with them?
Your so right. It’s definitely crazy and something that’ll really have you scratching your head. It just seems like a really shitty and stupid idea no matter how you slice it. Also no backup plan as well? Ridiculous
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Well, surprise surprise!
And where are those $190 million? Did they ever exist?
This is such a shady story.
They are probably “burried” with the “dead” CEO…
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Somewhere on a tropical beach, I bet.
What a smart and sneaky way to elude the laws and say “sorry folks, only our boss knew the password…” (shoulder shrug) This case sounds like a black comedy for Wall Street.
I wonder whether we’ll see a movie made about this eventually.
Shady story at all. And wait… 100K reward for finding 190Mil?! Cmon its not seriously. 
I was thinking about that. If someone has access to those 190 million would they call and give a tip?
Someone else who knows about the money and doesn’t have access though may do that.
If the smarties at a crypto exchange can’t help the other smarties at another exchange, what do they expect from the “community”? I know money talks, but like you said, $190 MM is at stake.
Sounds like a money grab to me.
And the story takes another twist:
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong recently touched on this theory that QuadrigaCX traded customer funds in a bid to return to some semblance of financial stability. Citing Coinbase’s research team and his own understanding of this fracas, the San Francisco-based industry insider noted that there’s a substantial chance the company was attempting to trade funds to get “out of a hole.” But, Armstrong made it clear that if this is even true, these attempts were futile, as QuadrigaCX’s mistakes caught up with them.
There is going to be a big movie about this story one day, I imagine.
@mlawson71 I hope so. I absolutely love these movies for Walstreet based on real stories.
I’d love to see one about this case, especially if the mystery about the funds finally gets solved.
The founder and CEO of now defunct QuadrigaCX Gerald Cotton used clients’ funds for private ends, reported the firm’s bankruptcy trustee Ernst & Young Inc. More specifically, Cotton, who died in mysterious circumstances last year, used customers’ funds to trade for his own account on other cryptocurrency exchanges.
QuadrigaCX, which was Canada’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange, ceased operations this year. The company filed for protection from creditors in January, and was declared bankrupt in mid-April, owing customers $190 million worth of cryptocurrency and fiat.
“Significant volumes of cryptocurrency were transferred off platform outside Quadriga to competitor exchanges into personal accounts controlled by Mr. Cotten,” Ernst & Young Ernst and Young outlined outlined in the report. “It appears that User Cryptocurrency was traded on these exchanges and in some circumstances used as security for a margin trading account established by Mr. Cotten.”