How investor lost $500,000 to crypto, as his trader died with password

In 2018, the cofounder of cryptocurrency firm, Quadriga CX, Gerald William Cotten, died nine days into his honeymoon, taking along the password to the company’s account housing investors’ $250 million fund.

This threw pandemonium into the cryptocurrency market, as investors couldn’t access their funds – cause only Cotten knew the password to their investment – one of them is Tong Zuo.

Zuo lost $500,000 he invested in the cryptoasset promoted by Quadriga. This was revealed in a Netflix documentary on cryptocurrency; “Trust No One: The Hunt For The Crypto King.” released on March 30, 2022.

The 33-year-old was one of the 76,000 investors whose monies were locked away in Qradriga accounts, after Cotten failed to pass the password to his wife, Jennifer Robertson, as promised.

READ ALSO: Hacker commits second biggest cryptocurrency hack, steals $540m from Ether holders

“I just prayed. I really prayed it wasn’t a scam. At that time, there was nothing I could do. There was no way of getting my money back. Once I deposited it, it was basically gone,” Zuo said.

Quadriga had claimed that the company was involved in a lawsuit which is preventing it from accessing the vault and distributing the money to investors – the Canada-based firm is now out of operation.

Zuo stated that, “I kept asking them: Where’s my money? – October, November, December – during all that time. They kept saying it was the lawsuit. I couldn’t get any sleep.”

Quadriga has been labelled an old-fashioned fraud using technology to aid its activities, according to investigation.

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