Quadriga CEO Death - Real or fractional banking?

[bitmover]

https://bitcoinist.com/quadrigacx-death-funds-moved/
Quadriga CEO Death – Funds Moved From ‘Lost’ Cold Wallets


A company with legal problems; a mysterious death; missing customer funds. The QuadrigaCX story could have come straight from the pen of a hack Hollywood writer. Well now, the internet’s faithful crypto-investigators, claim to have found evidence of transactions initiated from the supposedly ‘lost’ cold wallets. The Litecoin wallets, at least.
Let’s Start With a Quick Recap

QuadrigaCX is Canada’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, although it has just filed for creditor protection, following months of transaction delays. Customers are naturally concerned about their funds, as all assets are temporarily frozen… supposedly.

-snip-
Unfortunately, explained Quadriga, and Cotten’s wife, Jennifer Robertson, the $250 million worth of cryptocurrency of customer funds is stored in cold wallets are not recoverable as only her dead husband knew the private keys.

Is this for real? Did this guy just fake his death and stole the money?

Or did he spent the money long ago and now they were practicing fractional banking?


This is terrible news. This may be a good opportunity for everyone out there who trusts binance or bitfinex or tether or whatever to just move your funds to your own wallets!!!

Canada is a very serious country, with a very reliable financial system, and it happened there! With its largest exchange!! Imagine what can happen to a chinese exchange.

[indrakusumaindra]

Well i believe if he does fake his death it would be on major news. I think its real and thats what happen when only one person hold the private key in company and the think we learn its not good for company.

[sheenshane]

snip-

Is this for real? Did this guy just fake his death and stole the money?

That was already posted it here mate by Baofeng, https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5105266.msg49550744#msg49550744

Its sound like weird because even the family of Mr. Cotten(the CEO of Quadriga exchange) didn't show proof that his husband has died.
So, if that's true, why even his wife or family didn't know the private key of the cold storage of their exchange.

Well i believe if he does fake his death it would be on major news. I think its real and thats what happen when only one person hold the private key in company and the think we learn its not good for company.

Even if he assigns one of his trusted staff to hold the private key, so shady isn't it?

[andreibi]

snip-

Is this for real? Did this guy just fake his death and stole the money?

That was already posted it here mate by Baofeng, https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5105266.msg49550744#msg49550744

Its sound like weird because even the family of Mr. Cotten(the CEO of Quadriga exchange) didn't show proof that his husband has died.
So, if that's true, why even his wife or family didn't know the private key of the cold storage of their exchange.

Well i believe if he does fake his death it would be on major news. I think its real and thats what happen when only one person hold the private key in company and the think we learn its not good for company.

Even if he assigns one of his trusted staff to hold the private key, so shady isn't it?

People do a lot of weird things. Remember back then, Binance's Changpeng Zhao, former CTO of Okcoin said the exchange backup private keys were held by CEO Star Xu’s non-technical wife and mother.

[exstasie]

Is this for real? Did this guy just fake his death and stole the money?

Or did he spent the money long ago and now they were practicing fractional banking?

The more I read, the more it seems like they had a fractional reserve. This post isn't conclusive, but it definitely points to that. The problem is analyzing cold storage wallets that aren't publicly identified can be much harder than with hot wallets, as one commenter points out.

So if the exchange was mostly ever sending *to* its cold storage wallet, not reusing addresses and only very rarely spending *from* then that would make it difficult to find using walletexplorer.

This is terrible news. This may be a good opportunity for everyone out there who trusts binance or bitfinex or tether or whatever to just move your funds to your own wallets!!!

Is that what happened after Mt Gox went down in 2014? Or after Bitfinex was hacked in 2016 and customers lost ~1/3 of their balances?

People never learn.

[Snaic]

Well i believe if he does fake his death it would be on major news. I think its real and thats what happen when only one person hold the private key in company and the think we learn its not good for company.

Cryptocurrency encryption also has its drawback and it is very serious. On the one hand, you need to keep your secret keys very secure, and on the other, there should be a mechanism for disclosing them to certain individuals in case of our death. However, we will never be ready for our death, and there will always be a loss of cryptocurrency. In this case, the lost $ 250 million in cryptocurrency is a very huge amount.

[davis196]

Real or fake,this is ridiculous.250 million USD worth of crypto funds frosen because of the dead(fake or real,I don't know) of one man,who had all private keys.That's why we need decentralized crypto exchanges ASAP.
Wha't that question "Real or fractional banking?".This has nothing to do with the topic.

[metalglowd]

Indeed, for this information to be still vague, some people still suspect that this is only a falsehood made for an exit scam from the market. Try to see, someone tried to do an analysis with those wallet

https://twitter.com/tayvano_/status/1092439754849759233

[Crypdon]

Surely the public wallet addresses at least must be known to the team, at least they can tell if it has been moved into a scam account. He probably converted it into monero before he died and then sent it to his family members

[magneto]

https://bitcoinist.com/quadrigacx-death-funds-moved/
Quadriga CEO Death – Funds Moved From ‘Lost’ Cold Wallets


A company with legal problems; a mysterious death; missing customer funds. The QuadrigaCX story could have come straight from the pen of a hack Hollywood writer. Well now, the internet’s faithful crypto-investigators, claim to have found evidence of transactions initiated from the supposedly ‘lost’ cold wallets. The Litecoin wallets, at least.
Let’s Start With a Quick Recap

QuadrigaCX is Canada’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, although it has just filed for creditor protection, following months of transaction delays. Customers are naturally concerned about their funds, as all assets are temporarily frozen… supposedly.

-snip-
Unfortunately, explained Quadriga, and Cotten’s wife, Jennifer Robertson, the $250 million worth of cryptocurrency of customer funds is stored in cold wallets are not recoverable as only her dead husband knew the private keys.

Is this for real? Did this guy just fake his death and stole the money?

Or did he spent the money long ago and now they were practicing fractional banking?


This is terrible news. This may be a good opportunity for everyone out there who trusts binance or bitfinex or tether or whatever to just move your funds to your own wallets!!!

Canada is a very serious country, with a very reliable financial system, and it happened there! With its largest exchange!! Imagine what can happen to a chinese exchange.

Regardless of whether the news of his death was fabricated or not - it does reveal a very important problem that lies with all centralised forms of exchanges, wallets, etc.

I'd say that the a lot of the exchanges don't hold full reserves of what they get from deposits. The reason is simple, they are most likely able to spend this bitcoin elsewhere to finance the development of their own site or invest in things, while paying no interest. Of course, they aren't going to tell the public this, because otherwise people would be rushing to get their funds out.

That's what you should expect to be the case when you do come across any stablecoins, any hosted wallet services, and any exchanges. Don't expect them to have every dollar on each deposit, because they probably will not. And also, even if they do, they have the capacity to suspend your account or freeze your funds at any given time as well, which is why in most cases, a trustless bitcoin wallet should be used for long term storage of funds, not centralised exchanges.

[figmentofmyass]

I'd say that the a lot of the exchanges don't hold full reserves of what they get from deposits. The reason is simple, they are most likely able to spend this bitcoin elsewhere to finance the development of their own site or invest in things, while paying no interest. Of course, they aren't going to tell the public this, because otherwise people would be rushing to get their funds out.

think about how much money they make in fees, though. this isn't like stock trading where e-trade charges you a flat $7 commission per trade. crypto exchanges charge percentage commissions, which are immensely more profitable. high volume exchanges like bitfinex or coinbase are printing money super quickly.

intentionally making themselves insolvent is a really dangerous way to grow a business. they'd be better off selling equity for startup investment. any exchange that's done series A investment rounds or more is basically guaranteed not to be into this shady behavior.

[jossiel]

Terribly bad for those who left their money on that exchange. Some investigation says that his death was faked and there's no valid proof that the CEO's death was for real, there's no even certificate to provide that his dead for real.

A new lesson to be told for most of the people who has been using exchanges as their safety vaults. Don't ever keep your bitcoin and other important stuffs on exchanges, as much as possible make sure you hold your funds by holding the private keys.

[nur rochid]

Terribly bad for those who left their money on that exchange. Some investigation says that his death was faked and there's no valid proof that the CEO's death was for real, there's no even certificate to provide that his dead for real.

A new lesson to be told for most of the people who has been using exchanges as their safety vaults. Don't ever keep your bitcoin and other important stuffs on exchanges, as much as possible make sure you hold your funds by holding the private keys.

indeed it becomes very risky if we store it there, as if it is difficult to hold accountable after that. and of course the consumers who are harmed. therefore we have to be more careful to choose exchange and do not keep assets too long

[Kakmakr]

They will surely investigate if $250 million were involved. This should also be a wakeup call to other exchanges to have backup measure for instances like this. When I started working, we had a big safe in our offices and we had two people working on different shifts with keys to that safe.

If something happened with the one person, the other person were simply called from the other shift to open the safe. We also had a third backup key that was stored off-site in a safety deposit box. <If both keys were lost, new keys could be made from this master key>  

This just looks like a unprofessional company, with no vision and disaster recover plans for emergency situations like this.  

[bitmover]

They will surely investigate if $250 million were involved. This should also be a wakeup call to other exchanges to have backup measure for instances like this. When I started working, we had a big safe in our offices and we had two people working on different shifts with keys to that safe.

Sadly, this shows how much regulations are important, and this ecosystem desperately need it.

An exchange can't simple steal or lose 200 millions dollars because a CEO died. There must be security measures such as the ones you saw in your job. There will be some obligations regarding how privatekeys of someone else's money will be kept. It's somehow sad to think that those measures are necessary.

[el kaka22]

I don't get it, why does banks and exchanges and companies are saved by the government but not people. If a bank fails to do what it should and owes its customers a lot of money and needs to get bailed out of the situation government helps them out but when a person fails to pay their loan they take his stuff away. How does that makes sense. I know that wasn't the topic but I just hate the fact that Quadriga got saved by the Canadian government with the creditor protection thingy.

Aside from that I doubt he is not dead, he is probably dead, there are much better ways to steal peoples money without faking your death, otherwise someone could see you and notify people, who is going to believe someone who came up with 250 million dollar worth of coin without a big history, only people with that much money is the people who have been in the business world for a long time and unless he fakes his death and impersonate bill gates when he is revived as someone new people will ask where he found the money.

[audaciousbeing]

I was actually looking forward to this news about the death of the founder who died and no one in the entire organisation have access to the crypto currencies in his custody. Things like this are what should not be heard in any sane industry and it would continue to ensure that regulators are harsh towards crypto start-ups. I have never seen a bank where one director will die and other directors can access the company's fund or an individual the fund goes to his next of kin after certain verification but unfortunately this is happening in crypto.

Its simply a case of failed system. Whether real or fractional peoples life saving are at stake.

[BitHodler]

An exchange can't simple steal or lose 200 millions dollars because a CEO died. There must be security measures such as the ones you saw in your job. There will be some obligations regarding how privatekeys of someone else's money will be kept. It's somehow sad to think that those measures are necessary.

With time and stricter regulations concerning exchanges it will be something of the past. Everything that happens right now will be used by regulators to understand how badly things can go wrong in the crypto world.

We need these events (regardless of how bad they are) to happen in order to improve, and let's be honest, it's better that they happen today rather than somewhere in 2025 with very likely way higher amounts of user funds at stake.

I wish there was a way to make these mistakes without losing money, but that option isn't available. Only when money is lost, people, services and regulators are motivated enough to make sure it doesn't happen again.

[gentlemand]

Sadly, this shows how much regulations are important, and this ecosystem desperately need it.

An exchange can't simple steal or lose 200 millions dollars because a CEO died. There must be security measures such as the ones you saw in your job. There will be some obligations regarding how privatekeys of someone else's money will be kept. It's somehow sad to think that those measures are necessary.

https://www.coindesk.com/canada-bitcoin-exchange-leader-market-turmoil


'Cotten, in turn, spoke to Quadriga’s security strengths, noting that the exchange uses multi-signature cold storage to secure bitcoin holdings. Fiat holdings, he continued, are held at unspecified Canadian financial institutions.

“Quadriga takes security seriously, and employs a number of policies and procedures to ensure that both client information and client funds remain completely safe,” he said.'


I'm sure his suggestion to stop multi sigging was thoroughly approved and applauded by his colleagues. He must have supplied Indian certificates stating that in no way whatsoever was he going to 'die' before he instigated it again.

[Kolua20]

Too many oddities and inconsistencies in this matter. The family does not have access to the key, dubious death. It is possible that he falsified his death to get money.