The QuadrigaCX story takes another strange twist

The QuadrigaCX saga refuses to stop being a source of debate and speculation. As earlier reported by FXStreet, the exchange platform lost $190 million worth of their customer’s money, because of their founder, Gerald Cotten’s, death. Since the news broke out, there has been constant debate and speculation about its validity. Jesse Powell, the CEO of Kraken, tweeted the following:

“We have thousands of wallet addresses known to belong to @QuadrigaCoinEx and are investigating the bizarre and, frankly, unbelievable story of the founder's death and lost keys. I'm not normally calling for subpoenas but if @rcmpgrcpolice are looking in to this, contact @krakenfx” 

A Twitter user who goes by “CryptoMedication” released an in-depth report on QuadrigaCX’s Bitcoin holdings. The following is what the report surmised:

• It appears that there are no identifiable cold wallet reserves for QuadrigaCX.
• It appears that QuadrigaCX was using deposits from their customers to pay other customers once they requested their withdrawal.
• It does not appear that QuadrigaCX has lost access to their Bitcoin holdings.
• It appears the number of bitcoins in QuadrigaCX’s possession are substantially less than what was reported in Jennifer Robertson’s (wife of allegedly deceased CEO and Owner Gerry Cotten) affidavit, submitted to the Canadian courts on January 31st, 2019.
• At least some of the delays in delivering crypto withdrawals to customers were due to the fact that QuadrigaCX simply did not have the funds on hand at the time. In some cases, QuadrigaCX was forced to wait for enough customer deposits to be made on the exchange before processing crypto withdrawal requests by their customers.
• After completing the analysis, it is the author’s opinion that QuadrigaCX has not been truthful with regards to their inability to access the funds needed to honor customer withdrawal requests. In fact, it is almost impossible to believe that this is the case in lieu of the empirical evidence provided by the blockchain.

Stranger still, many people are pointing out that QuadrigaCX’s co-founder Michael Patryn, has been a using a fake name. His real name is Omar Dhanani who was convicted of fraud in the United States and was released in 2007. The fraud was for operating an online marketplace for identity theft. He was also arrested in Canada for laundering money for the fraudulent payment processor, Liberty Reserve.