Canadian cryptocurrency exchange QuadrigaCX is unable to access most of its funds and owes around $190 million to its customers after the death of its founder Gerald Cotten.
According to a report by CoinDesk, a court filing suggests that crypto exchange owes $250 million CAD as most of the funds were kept in a cold wallet (a physical device that isn’t connected to the internet) which could be accessed only by Gerald.
Jennifer Robertson, the widow of the deceased founder, suggests that Cotten was the only person in the firm to have access to funds and cold wallets and no other person had any knowledge of the same.
While Robertson has hold of the founder’s laptop, she is unable to retrieve any passwords for it. Someone has been hired to access the data, however, there has been no luck as of now.
The report further suggested that Gerald Cotten died of Crohn’s disease in Jaipur, India in December 2018, following which the company made his death public earlier in January.
Additionally, the amount of funds stored in the cold, as well as the hot wallets, remains unknown. However, the funds stored in cold wallets were more as compared to the hot wallets.
It is noteworthy that the company had also filed for creditor protection on its website. To clear its debts, QuadrigaCX is expected to sell off its operating platform, called Multiple Parties.
