Cryptocurrencies
Quadriga Downfall Stemmed From Founder’s Fraud, Regulators Find
- CEO Cotten basically operated a Ponzi scheme, OSC says
- Collapse caused $125 million in losses for 76,000 clients
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The collapse of crypto-exchange QuadrigaCX was the result of fraud by its founder Gerry Cotten, the Ontario Securities Commission concluded in an investigation.
The Canadian securities regulator has taken the rare step of publishing its findings on its 10-month investigation into QuadrigaCX, whose collapse in 2019 caused at least C$169 million ($125 million) in losses for 76,000 investors in Canada and abroad. QuadrigaCX shut down in January 2019, weeks after Cotten died unexpected while on his honeymoon in India, leaving behind a mystery of what happened to the Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies on the platform.