Cotten's company, QuadrigaCX, expanded exponentially, and the twentysomethings soon became wealthy beyond their wildest dreams. (Courtesy of Jennifer Robertson) The first thing. On one particular margin account, he conducted 67,000 individual trades alone, placing enormous bets on fledgling currencies like Dogecoin, OmiseGO, and Zcash. He began his own HYIP chat site by December, and on January 1, 2004he was 15 and a halfhe launched his first pyramid scheme, S&S Investments. According to the authorities, about $169 million of the funds were missing, with five of the six cold wallets used to store the cryptocurrency being empty since April 2018. There was also the fact that these were Canadian people, Canadian companies. It begins with a few findings that do not fit neatly into the Royal Fuckup narrative. Roberston said she's sorry for Cotten's actions and the harm he's caused. [4] In her memoir, Bitcoin Widow: Love . During that time Quadriga continued to accept new funds but returned none. Exit Scam: The Death and Afterlife of Gerald Cotten. The sudden death of Gerald Cotten in December 2018 plunged the world of cryptocurrency into chaos. Traditional law enforcement, meanwhile, had only the vaguest understanding of the subject. Newsweek Newsletter sign-up > They married four years later in October 2018, living a. While he lost thousands of dollars when Quadriga shut down, he said adding up the losses of friends and family to whom he had recommended the trading platform, the totalsits at more than $1 million. Inside Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushners Gilded Florida ParadiseFar From Donald Trump or 2024, Chaos lingers at the periphery, but the Trump-Kushner marriage is thriving in exile. Among those Mueller warned was Amber Scott, an anti-money-laundering expert at a compliance firm in Toronto called Outlier Solutions. He sought a programmer who is familiar with Bitcoin to develop a website that would serve as an open market place, like a stock market, where people buy and sell Bitcoin. The design had to be simple, but professional and it had to be built quickly. According to Quadrigas last public filings in 2015, it operated in a deficit. Cottens efforts to win the trust of Bitcoin enthusiasts relied on his reputation in Vancouver, where he had become a director of the Bitcoin Co-op. After Cotten's death, she agreed to forfeit $12 million in assets that included vehicles and real estate. The most effective and thorough investigation to date, however, has been conducted by anonymous accounts posting on Twitter, Reddit, Pastebin, and Telegram. They asked me about 20 times if he was alive, says one witness who has intimate knowledge of Quadrigas workings and has been questioned by both agencies. Jennifer Robertson became the focus of a lot of suspicious chatter online after her husband died and his company collapsed, exposing a $200-million fraud. "I just really hated the questions, like, it seemed that I should have known," Robertson told CBC's Andrew Chang. "It never occurred to me [that he was breaking the law]," said Robertson. As Quadriga customers tried to pull their money from the exchange, they were met with long waits to access their funds. At least some of those accounts had also been emptied. Crypto Long & Short News and analysis for the professional investor. The whisper campaign likely began after Ryan Mueller, who conducted oversight for a third-party processor in Vancouver, was asked to review Quadrigas application. How could a seemingly healthy young man die suddenly from complications with Crohn's disease? It put us in a particular place of need.. I love electric. The whole thing would cost $600,000, but expense never came uponly safety. Over several dozen hours of sailing lessons, the yacht dealer learned a few things about his customer. If the Mastermind Theory seems far-fetched, its worth pointing out that an exit scam can only succeed if it seems far-fetched. He found the place in the attic where four holes had been drilled through the rafters. Perhapsthis scenario goesCotten believed that the cryptocurrency bull market would continue indefinitely, leading to higher trading volumes and profits; Cotten would have forced Patryn out, knowing that with intensified public scrutiny, his past would become a liability. One of those bay islandsfour acres of pine encircled by black sandCotten purchased that summer. Michael was obviously running the show, but it was a very quiet running, says Weinberg. He was driven to a private hospital and diagnosed with acute gastroenteritis. Essentially, Gerry gambled away customer money through trading. It'd be a form of closure for some people," said Small. Jennifer Robertson, Gerald Cotten's wife, was his life partner. But he never did. Jennifer Robertson and Gerald Cotten married in 2018. The operator of an exchange on which Cotten opened accounts told Ernst & Young that Cotten had squandered most of his holdings on reckless trades. ^ "Quadriga CEO's widow speaks out over his death and the missing crypto millions". Perhaps Cottens obsessive foreign travelhe boasted of having visited more than 50 countries without ever having been searched by customswas inspired not by wanderlust but by strategy. Bitcoin was founded on the principle that no individual or institution should be trusted. He began to host the weekly meetups at Quadrigas office. It took more than a month for QuadrigaCX to publicly announce Cotten's death and then another two weeks for Jennifer Robertson to admit the customer funds were inaccessible." Michael MacDonald (2019-07-16). Canadian real estate developer Jennifer Robertson met Quadriga CEO Gerald Cotten on Tinder in 2014. | Pikagi Quadriga Fund claimed to be operated by four (unnamed) investment managers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. After his death, investigators discovered he used the money as his own personal slush fund.