QuadrigaCX, the Canadian cryptocurrency exchange, which has hit the headlines of news outlets around the world, purportedly never had the $190 million in Bitcoin it apparently lost access to when its CEO unpredictably died, as per the claims of new research on Feb. 5.
It is to be noted that the report is published on cryptocurrency and digital asset portal Zerononcense Blog. The aforementioned report makes numerous claims about the true state of QuadrigaCX’s Bitcoin holdings. Notably, all these claims allegedly contradict the official statements.
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Furthermore, QuadrigaCX has gone through a lot of pecuniary trouble since its CEO Gerald Cotten allegedly died of complications from Crohn’s disease in December 2018.
It was divulged in the month of January that the infamous crypto exchange seemingly had no access to its wallets, as Cotten had not left any proof of passwords. Interestingly, the disclosure was done via an affidavit made by Cotten’s wife. Around 115,000 customers remained without funds, which amounted to around $190 million USD in digital assets and fiat currency.
Nonetheless, Zerononcense disagrees with several assertions in the affidavit, including that QuadrigaCX had cold wallets and these contained the $137 million in quarantined funds in the form of cryptocurrency and digital assets.
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There are primarily 6 summary findings in the report. The first of those summary findings mentions: “It appears that there are no identifiable cold wallet reserves for QuadrigaCX”. As per the research, QuadrigaCX probably only had under $100 million worth of digital asset and cryptocurrency reserves.
Furthermore, the report puts forward proof that purportedly shows a party had admittance to the exchange’s wallets after the founder died.
The research continues stating:
“It does not appear that QuadrigaCX has lost access to their Bitcoin holdings. It is worth noting that there are several outgoing transactions that have been made since the alleged date of Gerald Cotten’s passing (December 9th, 2018).”
Moreover, QuadrigaCX further appears suspicious as it allegedly used buyer deposits to reimburse customer obligations.
To further substantiate the claims, the research mentions that a comparison of QuadrigaCX’s withdrawal execution to those of other digital asset and cryptocurrency exchanges like Binance, Coinbase, and Bittrex exhibits that:
“The movement of bitcoins to satisfy customer demand is highly unorthodox and extremely inefficient for any legitimate exchange.”
It is to be noted that QuadrigaCX had earlier also faced legal trouble in November 2018. Then, a judge ruled in support of a Canadian bank that had frozen around $19.6 million in the accounts of QuadrigaCX. The reason cited by the judge for the same was an inability to settle on the owners of the fund.
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Moreover, the research notes that at least one of the dealings in which QuadrigaCX ostensibly used a funds aggregation of other users to accomplish a withdrawal request. The aforementioned transaction took place in November 2018.
It is to be noted that the researchers admit that the findings may not be altogether correct and should not be taken as indisputable certainty.
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