What happens when the head of the bank dies? Most often nothing - business as usual. What happens when the head of the cryptocurrency exchange dies? Investor money sinks underground. Not surprisingly, conspiracy theories immediately appear, that death was faked.

QuadrigaCX is a cryptocurrency exchange where we could buy bitcoins or litecoins. We could, because the stock market has not been operating since January. In December 2018, her boss, Gerry Cotten, died.

The entrepreneur was on his honeymoon in India, where he was hospitalized due to complications with Cronh's disease. A 30-year-old widow later testified that the reason for her death was acute intestinal failure.

Cotten took the password to his laptop with cold wallets
Only the dead man was to know the password to the laptop that contained the most sensitive elements of his stock market.

Cold wallets do not have an internet connection and are most often chosen by investors who do not trade. Unfortunately, if access is lost, the funds are simply lost. And in this case we are talking about a sum of up to $ 250 million!

Is Cotten really dead?
This fact is questioned - by surprise - customers of the stock exchange who lost their funds on it. They want an exhumation to confirm that Cotten is indeed buried in the grave. A death certificate published by a widow or assuring her about hiring specialists to help find a password is not enough for them.

Customers argue that Cronh is not usually a fatal disease, and in addition news of Cotten's death was delayed. In addition, the hired consulting company, Ernst & Young, was to find out how money was being taken out of the company's accounts. So the matter looks puzzling.

And this could have been avoided if the stock exchange had followed basic security practices. Especially if we are talking about activities on this scale.