After Years of Lethargy, $1.7 Million in Bitcoin Belonging to QuadrigaCX Reawakens

After being considered to be inaccessible for years, five wallets connected to the now-defunct Canadian cryptocurrency exchange QuadrigaCX have recently been seen exchanging almost $1.7 million worth of Bitcoin.

On December 19, crypto researcher ZachXBT warned the community on Twitter, pointing out that five wallets had exchanged almost 104 Bitcoin.
BTC to multiple wallets on December 17.

The wallets had not sent Bitcoin since at least April 2018, according to blockchain records.

Gerald Cotten, the company's founder and CEO, passed away in December 2018 and was the only person in charge of the private keys to the exchange's wallets. QuadrigaCX, once Canada's largest cryptocurrency exchange, declared bankruptcy in April 2019 as a result.

At the time of its insolvency, 155,000 exchange users owing up to $200 million in cryptocurrency.

According to a study from Big Four accounting firm Ernst & Young (EY), which is in charge of managing the exchange's estate, QuadrigaCX unintentionally moved almost 103 BTC on February 6 in February 2019. 2019 to the cold wallets that only the late Cotten had access to, which is nearly comparable to the amount of Bitcoin that has lately transferred.

The company declared at the time that it will work with management to get the bitcoin out of the cold wallets.

Conspiracy theories claimed that the founder of QuadrigaCX faked his own death as part of an illegal exit scheme after his strange death and the subsequent collapse of the exchange.

The incident served as the centerpiece of a Netflix documentary in 2022.

Years before his passing, in 2014, Cotten revealed that the exchange kept its private keys offline in the business' safety deposit box at a bank and that the easiest way to retain private keys was to print them off and store them in a safety deposit box.