Stock exchange, trading digital assets, Quadriga CX has a problem at $ 200 million without an obvious solution — and this story once again underscores the uncertain status of cryptocurrency exchanges without proper regulation. The fact that the exchange is unable to access its own cryptocurrency reserves of almost $ 200 million in Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ether and other digital tokens that are stored in the so-called cold wallets.
What happens to Quadriga CX
Access to digital wallets Quadriga CX application that stores keys for sending and receiving cryptocurrency was lost with the death of chief Executive officer of Quadriga CX Gerald Cotto, who died on December 9 in India from complications of Crohn’s disease. He was 30 years old.
Cotten always cared about the safety of a laptop, e-mail and instant messenger, which he used for doing business for five years, was encrypted, according to the testimony of his widow, Jennifer Robertson. He took sole responsibility for the management of cash and coins, and also for the banking and accounting side of the business and to avoid hacking, moved the most digital coins in cold storage.
It security measures can understand. Exchanges with virtual currencies suffered at least five major attacks last year. Japan, which has sheltered the most active exchanges with the digital assets that experienced (or not experienced — it is necessary to understand) the two largest known cryptohome: fall of Mt. Gox in 2014, and the theft of almost $ 500 million in digital tokens with Coincheck last January.
The problem is that Robertson says that it can not find any passwords or business records for the company. Invited experts to attempt to hack computers and mobile phone Cotto, however, their attempts have yielded “limited success”, and crack an encrypted USB key was not possible.
After the death of Robertson’s inventory of cryptocurrency Quadriga became unavailable, and some of them can be lost forever. The conclusion is very simple: store cryptocurrency and don’t lose your private keys.
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