Netflix has recently released a true crime-based documentary Trust No One: The Hunt for the Crypto King. This documentary covers the infamous QuadrigaCX crypto exchange scandal which had shaken the world of Bitcoin in 2019.
Luke Sewell, the director of the film tried to showcase the rise and fall of the QuadrigaCX in a limited time.
The story begins with the news that the young Founder and CEO of QuadrigaCX, Mr. Gerald Cotten has passed away in India due to Crohn’s disease in Dec 2018. His wife Jennifer Robertson broke the news on social media later a month in Jan 2019.
This news shattered the world of QuadrigaCX customers because the private key which holds access to their money also vanished with the death of Gerald Aka Gerry.
Gerry Cotten was the only person who had the passcodes of a cold wallet (an offline wallet designed to secure assets from hacking) which had CA$250 million of 115,000 customers of QuadrigaCX.
The head-turning fact was that in the month leading to his death; QuadrigaCX customers had started to raise a complaint about not being able to withdraw their money out of the exchange.
They were waiting for months but did not get any response from the crypto exchange platform. During this, Cotten was holidaying in different locations and doing office virtually.
A movie shows a group of QuadrigaCX investors creating a telegram group to investigate the death of Gerald Cotten – QuadrigaCX founder.
Who was Gerald Cotten Aka Gerry?
Gerald Cotten was a cryptocurrency enthusiast and had become an active member of the Vancouver Bitcoin Co-op in 2013. As per his companions, he was a very energetic, positive, and mindful guy on the surface.
He was cofounded QuadrigaCX in 2013 with Michael Patryn. Initially, they started doing only local trades and after a month they launched their online crypto exchange platform.
Only C$7.4 million worth of bitcoins were exchanged on QuardigaCX. They also tried to get listed on Canadian Securities Exchange (CSE) by raising funds but canceled the plan in early 2016 due to some unknown reasons.
QuadrigaCX had only 4 employees with offices in Vancouver and Toronto. They ran out of money by June 2015.
In 2016, Cotten became the sole founder of the company after all the directors resigned. There were no employees, no offices, and no bank accounts after this.
Now Gerald Cotten was running the company from his laptop only.
In 2017, bitcoin prices surged dramatically and C$1.2-billion worth of bitcoin was exchanged on Quadriga. Many people started investing in bitcoin via QuadrigaCX.
In June 2017, Quadriga announced that due to a smart contract error they have lost US$14 million worth of Ethereum.
In 2018, Bitcoin prices started to crash and customers were trying to book a profit and withdraw their money from the exchange as soon as possible. But there were delays of months in transactions.
After receiving many complaints from Quadriga customers, Investigative journalists Amy Caster also started working on this story and found that the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) has frozen the assets of Quadriga worth $19.6 million because of suspicious activities.
After his death, on 28th Jan 2019, the QudrigaCX crypto exchange online platform went offline.
CA$250 Million worth of Crypto Goes Missing
Gerald Cotton went into the grave with CA$250 Million worth of Cryptocurrency. His death circumstances were quite unbelievable.
During the investigation, in the submitted affidavit, Jennifer Robertson – his wife stated that she was not involved in the business and only Cotten had access to private digital keys.
The specialty of Cryptocurrency is that it is built on blockchain technology. Every transaction gets recorded on a public distributed ledger. We cannot find out which person has transferred bitcoins to another person. But we can view which wallet address has transferred a particular amount of bitcoin to another wallet at a certain date and time.
In further investigation, people found out 6 QuadrigaCX wallets which were completely empty.
This revelation made this case more suspicious and people had begun to see this as an “exit scheme” or Ponzi scheme. People started Reddit threads and telegram groups to know as much as possible about it in the hope that they could get their money back.
QuadrigaCX Scam 2019 – Shocking Revelations
After the revelation of 6 cold empty wallets, Ernst & Young dropped another bomb. They published a report on QuadrigaCX explaining how Cotten had transferred millions of dollars of crypto from customer’s accounts to competitor’s exchange accounts.
These personal accounts were in the name of Cotten and he used this money to fund his lavish lifestyle and trading activities on other platforms.
This was a shocking revelation for Quadriga Customers. Till now they were thought that the key to their money is missing, now the situation is that their money does not exist at all.
It also came out that Cotten had created some fake accounts in Quadriga and fueled that account with fake money. He used that fake money to buy real cryptos from customers largely under the account name Chris Markay.
He had lost a huge amount of money in trading and other activities.
With all these revelations, it was clear that QuadrigaCX was a Ponzi scheme.
After a few months, Investigative journalist Amy Castor also found that Cotten had a history of Ponzi schemes starting when he was just 15 years old.
What happened to Jennifer Robertson?
Many people speculated that Cotten’s wife did something wicked. Jennifer was the only person who was in India with him during his last breath. Also, she claimed to see his body in the coffin.
An interesting fact is that a month before going to India, Cotton had changed his will and as per the will after Cotten, everything will belong to his wife.
His wife stated that she tried to look for a password in Cotton’s laptop but could not find anything due to encryption.
One more reason behind the suspicion was that she had changed her name on her social media account multiple times. Few also claimed that she had murdered her first husband.
In the Netflix documentary, Jennifer’s sister Kimberly clarified why she had changed her name multiple times. Also, her first husband is alive and living peacefully.
She also mentioned that Jennifer was receiving threat calls from unknown people that’s why they had to move her to the safe house.
Is Gerald Cotten Really Dead?
Cotten’s death circumstances were suspicious.
As per the reports, Cotten went to India to do charity work for an orphanage and suffered from Crohn’s disease. He got admitted to the hospital and certain complications caused a cardiac arrest which became the main reason for his death.
There are multiple theories related to his death. A few interesting theories are,
- He had faked his death and absconded with the people’s money and currently living an anonymous life on some beach.
- His wife Jennifer Robertson poisoned him and covered the tracks.
- He is really dead.
No one could ever find out the real truth.
Fortis Hospital, Jaipur had issued his death certificate. But the certificate had a typo mistake. His last name was misplaced (COTTAN).
Given the past record of his frauds, it wasn’t difficult for him to manage a fake death certificate.
Trust No One: The Hunt for the Crypto King Review
QudrigaCX was the biggest scam in the history of cryptocurrency in 2019.
People who are already aware of the QuadrigaCX scam will not find it more interesting as there are so many things left uncovered in the movie. This film can entertain people who are new to the crypto industry.
The film has more focused on how QuadrigaCX investors continued their hunt for the lost crypto king via telegram and Reddit. And how their investigation leads to the revelation of the biggest crypto scam in Canada’s history.
Where is Gerald Cotten buried?
Few online sources claim that Gerald Cotton was buried in Nova Scotia. Indian authorities stated that his body was sent back to Nova Scotia for a small closed-casket funeral.
Who had seen the body of Gerald Cotten?
His wife Jennifer Robertson claimed that she had seen his body in the casket. No person other than her had seen the body, not even other family members.
Gerald Cotten’s Net Worth
The estimated net worth of Gerald Cotton was $80 million before his death based on the value of property and assets he owned.
Did Quadriga investors get their money back?
Only Gerald Cotton had access to the cold wallet where all the money was supposed to be securely stored. After his death and the revelation of the scam, it’s hard to say whether the cold wallet actually had the money or not.