How often were you told not to share your passwords?, Read how one person's death caused the lost of $190 million worth of cryptocurrencies just because he only knew the password.

Cryptocurrency is rarely out of new, but there is an ongoing case involving Canadian currency exchange QuadrigaCX. Gerald Cotten the CEO and Founder of QuadrigaCX who reportedly died in December 2018 took with him a costly piece of information- The password to access the customers' digital currency which is being held in cold storage which is a total of $190million (In which he is the only person that knew the password).

Cold storage is an offline wallet provided for storing bitcoins. With cold storage, the digital wallet is stored on a platform that is not connected to the internet, thereby, protecting the wallet from unauthorized access, cyber hacks, and other vulnerabilities that a system connected to the internet is susceptible to. ~Investopaedia

What is QuadrigaCX, and Who Was Gerald Cotton?

Gerald Cotton was an original co-founder of the company, a 30 year-old with a passion for digital finance who worked in the field for over a decade. On December 9th last year, according to a post by QuadrigaCX, he passed away due to complications stemming from Crohns disease. He was in India at the time, where he was building an orphanage.

Cotton was the only person who had the password to the company's "cold wallet", a device used to store cryptocurrency. Its called a cold wallet because it disconnected from the internet, for security reason. Within the cold wallet is allegedly sitting $190 million worth of customers QuadrigaCX crypto currencies.

Why Can’t QuadrigaCX Access the Money?

When Cotton died, he took one of the company’s most valuable assets with him – the password to the cold wallet that stored around $190 million in customer funds. His widow, Robertson – who, at the time of her husband’s death, was not officially employed by QuadrigaCX – has reportedly tried to access the cold wallet and company documents without success. In the January 30th court filing, she states:

“The laptop computer from which Gerry carried out the Company’s business is encrypted and I do not know the password or recovery key. Despite repeated and diligent searches, I have not been able to find them written down anywhere.” – Jennifer Robertson

In that cold wallet, according to Robertson, are the following funds:

Bitcoin: 24,488.59834 ($97 million approximately)
Bitcoin Cash: 11,378.79082 ($1.845 million approximately)
Bitcoin Cash SV: 11,149.74262 ($825,682 thousand approximately)
Bitcoin Gold: 35,230.42779 ($463,131 thousand approximately)
Litecoin: 199,888.408 ($11.8 million approximately)
Ethereum: 429,966.0131 ($58.3 million approximately)

The estimated value of these adds up to around $190 million.

According to Robertson(Wife of Gerald Cotton), despite employing the help of experts, she has been unable to access these funds stored on the cold wallet. She also states that Cotton was very security conscious, and held email accounts that would automatically delete encrypted messages after a short period, making accessing some company data very difficult.

Many suspect foul play, questioning the company’s motivations. Why did only one person have access to the cold wallet? Why was Cotton in India when he was in the midst of a court case with the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce? Why did the company wait over a month to tell customers that Cotton had passed away, and why did it continue to allow deposits during this time? Why did Cotton write his will two weeks before he died?

There are even those who don’t really believe that Cotton has died, calling into question the Indian death certificate and the circumstances around the cold wallet. There’s also the strange fact that Cotton left his two dogs $100,000 in his will, which has angered those looking at potentially huge loses.

As customers urgently wait for an update, QuadrigaCX has posted an message on the front page of its website. It states that it is working to locate and secure the cryptocurrency stored in its cold wallets, but with no success to date.

Whatever happens next, it seems that the issue is far from over, and that customers could have a long wait on their hands to get their money back.

[b]Source: [/b]https://www.marketwatch.com/story/crypto-exchange-customers-cant-access-190-million-after-ceo-dies-with-sole-password-2019-02-04

Chaiiiii

Wey PDP server people make Dem hack am

Am I the only one that thinks something's fishy? It looks too convenient. As for the password......hmmmm

Its a simple stuff...
1. Gather enough money from people which only you can access.
2. Go overseas, do plastic surgery to change face and other physical features.
3. Prepare your will
4. Fake your death
5. Enjoy your loot till kingdom come.


On a serious note, I'm one of the few who strongly believe that Oga Sergei Mavrodi is also alive and well somewhere.

SCAM.

this is serious ooooo!!! the man don't trust "Yahoo boyz" at all. they should better go and exhume his corpse and be sure he is dead for real!

Dont say just a password because some password is worth millions of dollars

This is probably a scam.

They have been scammed
Update: Laptop has been accessed and not 1 single bitcoin was found.

https://www.nairaland.com/5003288/investors-lose-190m-owner-cryptocurrency

The story featured on FrontPage last month, I'm also starting to belive he faked his death and is enjoying his loot in a different country with a new identity which cannotbe traced

Ha