We have all heard the stories of Bitcoin’s first days, as pizzas were bought with thousands of coins. There are also stories that people committed suicide when they couldn’t remember their passwords for their crypto accounts.
Now, a new story makes headlines. The CEO of Canada’s largest cryptocurrency exchange died and took the password to his grave. As a result, $190 million in deposit were lost.
The exchange in question is QuadrigaCX. The founder, Mr. Gerald Cotten, died in December 2018, and took the password to he accounts to his grave. Customers could not access their deposits. The amount of $190 million was kept as a “cold storage”, reported The Guardian.
The widow of Mr. Cotten, Jennifer Robertson, said that while she had access to her husband’s computer, she was not able to open it, as she didn’t know any passwords or recovery keys.
While clients cannot access their deposits, the exchange continued to accept funds after the CEO’s death. The acceptance of funds but was stopped by the company’s directors on the 26th of January, 2018.
On 31 January, QuadrigaCX filed an application for creditor protection with the supreme court of Nova Scotia, after months of transaction delays.
The company is currently looking to hire Ernst & Young as an independent third party to oversee the whole process that is about to unfold.