A California-based engineer lost the entirety of his life savings after using QuadrigaCX’s cryptocurrency exchange for remittance.
Tong Zou, 30, said in an interview to Bloomberg that he had opened a withdrawal request at QuadrigaCX in October 2018. According to his statements, he was planning to move to Canada at that time. Zou thought using a cryptocurrency exchange for remittance would save him money. So, he purchased bitcoins in the US and transferred them to his Canada-based Quadriga CX exchange account for a quick fiat withdrawal.
“I wasn’t using it for trading — I just wanted to move my money over to my Canadian bank account,” said Zou.
$190 Million Disappeared
However, the withdrawal requests made by Zhou and other 115,000 people met a dead-end after QuadrigaCX declared itself insolvent. The exchange announced that it had lost access to $190 million worth of cryptocurrencies after its founder Gerald Cotton died unexpectedly during a humanitarian trip to India. Cotton reportedly was the only person who had access to QuadrigaCX’s cold wallets. After his death, the exchange decided to discontinue services and filed for Creditor Protection at a local court.
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