Crypto Company Founder dies with Passwords to Investors’ $190m, says Wife

Gerald Cohen

A cryptocurrency company – QuadrigaCX – in Canada is currently battling with its customers following its founder’s death.

The founder Gerald Cotten, 30, died “due to complications with Crohn’s disease” while travelling in India to open an orphanage in December, according to his wife Jennifer Robertson.

Sky News reports that Jennifer, in an affidavit she swore on January 31 while filing for credit protection said about $190m in both cryptocurrency and normal money is in “cold storage” and her husband is the only one with the password.

She added that a technical expert is still trying to bypass the encryption on Gerald’s laptop.

The board of directors of QuadrigaCX also applied for creditor protection, with Ernst & Young expected to be appointed on Tuesday to oversee the proceedings.

“For the past weeks, we have worked extensively to address our liquidity issues, which include attempting to locate and secure our very significant cryptocurrency reserves held in cold wallets, and that are required to satisfy customer cryptocurrency balances on deposit, as well as sourcing a financial institution to accept the bank drafts that are to be transferred to us. Unfortunately, these efforts have not been successful,” the board said.