Front Burner

Inside Canada's Crypto Mystery

Reporter Alex Posadzki on how the death of a Canadian cryptocurrency entrepreneur has caused the disappearance of about $180-million in digital currency.
The sudden death of Gerald Cotten, founder of QuadrigaCX, has sent the cryptocurrency exchange into a tailspin with more than $180 million unaccounted for. (QuadrigaCX/Facebook)

In December of last year, Gerald Cotten died. The thirty-year-old entrepreneur was the founder of Quadriga, an online exchange where users could buy and sell cryptocurrency, like Bitcoin. With Cotten's sudden death, there were many questions, including the whereabouts of his laptop password. Without it, nobody knows the location of over $180-million worth of crypto.

"He was kind of running a one man show," says Alex Posadzki, who has been covering this story for The Globe and Mail. She says attempts to recover the cryptocurrency held by Quadriga have so far proven fruitless, despite the high-profile nature of the case. "We definitely may never know if the money is there, or we might never find the money."

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