Chapter 1: The Unexpected Death
Last week, the news was packed with headlines about the death of the Canadian executive in India, announced by his wife. The cause of death would be complications from Crohn's disease, of which he was a carrier and treated in a hospital in India (according to his widow). The whole thing took on an air of suspense because, as soon as it died, QuadrigaCX immediately lost access to a safe with approximately $ 190 million in crypto coins. The young CEO was the only one with access to Quadriga's cold storage , virtually taking the whole tomb to the grave.
In the midst of the storm comes Cotten's widow (her name is Jennifer ... Robertson), a person who only has access to the deceased's virtual wallet (where the money is for transfers and transactions), and nothing more.
What is leaving the Canadian scenario (and now the world, too) of standing ears is that, if no one had access to the fortune, how will the 115,000 clients of the agency that invested a total of $ 70 million there?
Chapter 2: He died. But is it okay?
When a bank CEO dies, what happens? The funeral, of course! Family and friends say goodbye, but assets, stocks, and investments do not go farther. The bank and the family take care of all the procedures for deciding the destination of the money. But with crypto-coins the thing is different, after all, the wallet and the safes are managed by a personal and non-transferable password.
What is happening now is people from all over the world throwing firewood on, fueling conspiracy theories and elucubrando that the executive would have forged his own death to seize that fortune and live the rest of his days as a multimillionaire. The case went to court in Canada, because many pieces still do not fit and the bill does not close.
Although CoinDesk has published Cotten's death certificate, Reddit and Twitter are in a rush with users strafing theories and questioning the legitimacy of the document, stating that in certain places in India you may even buy a death certificate.
The hurricane got even more nervous after Jesse Powell, CEO of a rival exchange (KrakenFX), twittered his opinion on Cotten's death: "Bizarre, and frankly, unbelievable."
Chapter 3: Pause to Find Out the Case
Last Tuesday (5), a Canadian court approved Quadriga's "concordat" request and granted a period of 30 days to suspend any legal proceedings.
In the meantime, Cotten's laptop will be in the hands of the creditors' lawyers, as it is possible to find the password for the millionaire accounts and solve the case. Or not.
Chapter 4: Protection against bankruptcy
Now the drama takes on more drastic proportions since QuadrigaCX will have to recover the password and pay off the debit with its investors. Meanwhile, he filed for bankruptcy protection.
"In recent weeks we have been working hard to solve our liquidity problems, which include trying to locate and secure the significant reserves of crypto-coins held in
The question that lingers and still feeds conspiracy theories is: if the company deals with third-party finance, why did not it back up passwords to access portfolios in serious cases, such as death? Why trust the keys of virtual vaults to only one person?
Meanwhile, the assets of all creditors remain frozen.
Chapter 5: Conspiracy Theories
By disrupting the case, curious information begins to appear, not to use the term "doubtful". The first is: why did it take so long between the CEO's alleged death on December 9 and his public announcement on January 31? After all, it was almost two months apart between the two events.
Meanwhile, on Reddit, users question Cotten's funeral service in Canada. Some claim burial officials have confirmed that there was a Gerald Cotten being veiled there, others claim that the undertaker was baffled by the questioning and that the Canadian funeral home did not find any Gerald Cotten in his records.
Over the days, more people, including respected names in the subject, also began to question the case. "This death came at a very strange time in the company's history," says Emin Gün Sirer, a professor at Cornell University and co-director of the Canadian Crypto-Transactions and Contracts Initiative, to the New York Times
To make matters worse, Bloomberg published this week that Cotten filed a will only 12 days before his death, according to official documents.
You can track all the movement on the case on Twitter (# QuadrigaCX ) and also on Reddit
Chapter 6: What the Friend Says
In an interview with the Chronicle Herald, Canada, Freddie Heartline
Heartline is hopeful that the case will be closed soon and the death of the friend will be taken as true. "I've told my friends, people, yes, it's money, and yes, the situation is horrible, but let's wait 30 days."
About the fact that the CEO has died without having left the password with someone of confidence, Freddie is incisive: "You can not trust anyone to leave your passwords, not even your wife."
Heartline was co-founder of the exchange Bitcoin Co-op, alongside Cotten in Vancouver in 2013.
Who was Gerald Cotten?
The founder of QuadrigaCX was 30 years old, married and had no children. He and his wife lived in a suburb of Halifax, Nova Scotia. As owner of exchange of criptocurrencys, Gerald had diverse properties in his name, including real estate in Nova Scotia and in British Columbia. He drove a Lexus 2017 and had a private plane, a yacht, and two Chihuahuas. Besides Quadriga, he had an account at the Bank of Montreal and the Canadian Tire.
Until proven otherwise, Cotten died on Dec. 9 from complications of Crohn's disease in Jaipur, India. His funeral would have taken place at the Snow Funeral Home in Halifax on December 12, 2018.
We still have many days to go before the closure of the case. We will update this matter with new information as soon as possible. Stay tuned!
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