Netflix's latest true-crime documentary, Trust No One: The Hunt for the Crypto King, follows a group of investors turned sleuths as they search for answers over the suspicious death of the founder of a Canadian cryptocurrency exchange and the alleged $250million that he stole from them.
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But what really happened to the Bitcoin mogul at the centre of the scandal, Gerry Cotten - and is he really dead? Find out here…
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Gerald 'Gerry' Cotten was a Canadian Bitcoin investor who founded the cryptocurrency trading platform Quadriga CX back in 2013 when he was 25. Within just a few years, the company grew to become the largest of its kind in Canada.
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Although he initially began the company with business partner Michael Patryn, Gerry took over as the sole director of the company in 2016, the year before cryptocurrency exploded into the mainstream.
While this resulted in a massive boom in people investing in the company, Quadriga CX quickly ran into financial difficulties. Gerry, who married around this time, didn't have a permanent office space or enough employees to deal with the growing amount of customers.
Gerry Cotten founded the Canadian cryptocurrency Quadriga CX
Bitcoin interest tanked in 2018, resulting in a wave of Quadriga CX customers rushing to withdraw their cash. Those who held Bitcoin with other companies also transferred their cryptocurrency to Quadriga CX due to the fact that they could actually make a little bit more money by doing so. However, their payments never came through.
Not long after this, it was revealed that Gerry had passed away at the age of 30 from Crohn's disease while honeymooning in India. The news came as a shock to everyone and left many questions unanswered.
Many customers were left with unanswered questions when Gerry died
At the time, Gerry was the only person who had 'keys' to Quadriga CX's wallet as he had not shared the highly confidential passwords with anyone else. Around $250million in cryptocurrency, owned by more than 115,000 customers, was basically unretrievable.
Following the announcement of Gerry's death, the site went offline due to "maintenance" and it was revealed soon after that the company was being declared bankrupt. In short, customers had no way of getting their money back.
There are a number of suspicious details surrounding Gerry's death
As revealed in the documentary, many cryptocurrency investors believe that Cotten is still alive and staged his death to defraud customers and get out of paying back their money which he may not have had.
They point to a number of suspicious details surrounding his death, including the fact that his will was changed to leave everything to his wife just nine days before he died and that his name was misspelt on his death certificate.
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As a result, a group of former Quadriga CX users sent a letter to authorities asking that they exhume Gerry's body to confirm his identity and verify a cause of death, but this was not carried out. However, his widow did return $12million to the company in a voluntary settlement.
Today there is no evidence that Gerry is still alive, but that hasn't stopped speculation that he faked his own death among those who were affected.
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