Gerald Cotten, the 30-year-old founder of QuadrigaCX, is suspected of faking his own death due to large debts to investors. According to preliminary data, Kotten died in India on Dec. 9, 2018 due to complications from Crohn’s disease, making it impossible to access $190 million of the customers’ funds as Cotten was the only person with the password to access the funds.
Cotten signed a will on Nov. 27 that included a $100,000 provision for his two pet chihuahuas. The diligent preparation of the will and the apparent lack of contingency planning around the customer funds has left many people scratching their heads.
The users of the exchange have published suggestions that in fact Cotten did not die, but simply fled from the country because of debts. Later, media joined the theory.
Cryptocurrency experts have expressed their surprise at the unusual situation. Taylor Monahan, CEO of cryptocurrency specialist MyCrypto, says that the deadlock highlights the need for a “multi-signature wallet” where a number of people have access to sensitive data.
“Ideally, the cold storage wallet would be a multi-signature wallet where the keys that control the individual accounts are kept very, very, secure and in multiple physically separate locations,” she explained, in a statement emailed to Fox News.
