The Death Mystery: The disappearance of $190 million in the QuadrigaCX case
This story sounds like something out of a crime and mystery movie on Netflix (and it has indeed become that).
The Scene: QuadrigaCX was the largest cryptocurrency trading platform in Canada. Its young founder and CEO, Gerald Cotten, was the only person managing everything.
The Real Event (The Shock): In early 2019, the platform suddenly announced that its founder Gerald Cotten had died unexpectedly a month earlier while on his honeymoon in India due to complications from his illness.
The Mystery: The catastrophic problem was that Gerald was the only person who possessed the passwords for the cold wallets that contained the clients' funds. With his death, funds estimated at around $190 million belonging to over 100,000 clients became trapped forever, and no one could access them.
The Strange Side (Conspiracy Theories): This is where the madness began. Many did not believe the death story. Conspiracy theories emerged claiming that his death was faked and he escaped with the money to live a new life. Angry investors demanded the authorities to "dig up his corpse" to confirm that it was indeed him who was buried.
Subsequent investigations revealed administrative chaos and mismanagement of funds, but the bigger mystery was not conclusively solved, and the money of most people was lost forever. It is a true and strange story about the severe risks of placing trust in a single person, and a living embodiment of the famous crypto saying: "Not your keys, not your coins."