How I lost my $500,000 life-savings in cryptocurrency after Trader died with password

A young technology professional identified as Tong Zuo has narrated how he lost his entire life savings after investing all of the money with a cryptocurrency trader who died in 2018, TopNaija reports.

Tong Zuo recounts when he invested his money into Quadriga CX, and trusted the company’s CEO and founder, Gerald William Cotten with the funds since he had password access to all his clients’ accounts.

Gerald William Cotten

The total amount of money held in Quadriga’s accounts is an estimated total of $250 million and caused 76,000 investors to lose out on their funds once Cotten passed away.

Zuo said he received most of the money from his parents and invested in cryptocurrency to avoid bank charges when he moved from the United States to Vancouver, Canada.

The now-closed Canadian-based company claims a legal matter with a bank is delaying the distribution of funds.

“I kept asking them: Where’s my money? – October, November, December – during all that time. They kept saying it was the lawsuit. I couldn’t get any sleep. I just prayed. I really prayed it wasn’t a scam. At that time, there was nothing I could do. There was no way of getting my money back. Once I deposited it, it was basically gone,” Zuo added.

Cotten’s wife, Jennifer Robertson, claims he promised to create a mechanism that will give her access to the passwords once he died but she never received them.

Zuo’s story and others has been featured in the Netflix documentary “Trust No One: The Hunt For The Crypto King.”

Quadriga Fintech Solutions was the owner and operator of QuadrigaCX, which was believed to be Canada’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. In 2019 the exchange ceased operations and the company filed for bankruptcy with C$215.7 million in liabilities and about C$28 million in assets