The digital currency exchange QuadrigaCX has lost control of at least $137 million because the company's CEO died and took the codes to his grave.
QuadrigaCX heirs try to hack into his encrypted laptop in hopes of gaining access to the cold wallet.
A cryptocurrency exchange in Canada, QuadrigaCX, has lost control of at least $137 million USA, of its clients' assets, following the sudden death of its founder Gerald Cotten, who was the only one with access to the platform's cold wallets, making any attempt to manage its clients' thousands of digital currencies stored in that's all.
The dramatic error was reported with a affidavit filed Thursday by Jennifer Robertson, widow of the sole director and CEO of QuadrigaCX, Gerry Cotten. Widow Robertson testifies that Cotten died of Crohn's disease in India in December, at the age of 30.
In accordance with common security practices by many owners encryptionς, η QuadrigaCΧ αποθηκεύει τη συντριπτική πλειοψηφία της διαχείρισης των κρυπτονομισμάτων σε ένα “κρύο πορτοφόλι” (cold wallet), το οποίο είναι ένα ψηφιακό πορτοφόλι που δεν συνδέεται με το Διαδίκτυο. Το μέτρο αυτό έχει σχεδιαστεί για να αποτρέψει τις hackers να αποστραγγίζουν τα κανονικά hot πορτοφόλια.
Thursday's affidavit, however, proves that cold wallets are by no means a safe way to secure digital currencies. Robertson testified that Cotten stored the cold wallet on an encrypted laptop. According to company records, the cold wallet holds C $ 180 million (US $ 137 million), which is currently inaccessible to QuadrigaCX and more than 100.000 customers.
"The laptop from which Gerry ran the companies' business is encrypted and I do not know the password or the recovery key," Robertson wrote in her statement. The widow went on to say that she had hired experts to try to decrypt the laptop.
The experts, he added, have already gained access to personal and electronic accounts post officeof Cotten's work and are now trying to gain access to an encrypted email account. Cotten also used an encrypted messaging system, but the chances of successfully reading the communications appear slim because, according to experts, messages will disappear from the encrypted messaging system after a short time space.
Ο QuadrigaCX website became inaccessible, providing only a brief update of the status quo.
The strange thing though is that on Reddit, customers of this exchange revealed that they are moving from QuadrigaCX cold wallet to external addresses, digital currencies litecoin.
