Gerald Cotten Passes and The QuadrigaCX Mystery
- Centralized Exchange
- CT Lore
Gerald Cotten founded QuadrigaCX in 2013, which became Canada's largest cryptocurrency exchange. In December 2018, Cotten died at age 30 in India from complications related to Crohn's disease, leaving only him with the passwords to cold wallets holding customer funds. This led to the exchange's collapse in early 2019, with around $190-250 million in cryptocurrency inaccessible or missing for over 100,000 users. Investigations revealed Quadriga operated as a fraud and Ponzi scheme, where Cotten used fake accounts to trade client assets, resulting in major losses from unauthorized trades and personal misappropriation. The scandal sparked widespread conspiracy theories about whether Cotten faked his death, though official reports confirmed the fraud was exposed by his actual passing.