Five wallets tied to defunct Canadian cryptocurrency exchange QuadrigaCX, previously thought to be inaccessible, have just been spotted moving around $1.7 million worth of bitcoin after years of dormancy.
Crypto researcher ZachXBT alerted the crypto community in a tweet on Dec. 19, highlighting the five wallets that transferred around 104 bitcoin (BTC) to different wallets on Dec. 17.
Blockchain records show that the wallets have not sent BTC since at least April 2018.
Five wallets attributed to QuadrigaCX unexpectedly moved ~104 BTC for the first time in years on Dec. 17.
1ECUQLuioJbFZAQchcZq9pggd4EwcpuANe
1J9Fqc3TicNoy1Y7tgmhQznWrP5AVLXj9R
1MhgmGaHwLAvvKVyFvy6zy9pRQFXaxwE9M
1HyYMMCdCcHnfjwMW2jE4cv9qVkVDFUzVa
1JPtxSGoekZfLQeYAWkbhBhkr2VEDADHZB
— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) December 19, 2022
QuadrigaCX, once Canada’s largest crypto exchange, filed for bankruptcy in April 2019 after the death of its founder and CEO Gerald Cotten, who was solely responsible for the private keys of the exchange’s wallets, in December 2018.
About 155,000 exchange users were owed up to $200 million in crypto at the time of the bankruptcy.
In February 2019, a report by Ernst & Young — the Big Four’s accounting firm that oversees the exchange’s estate — said that on February 6, 2019, QuadrigaCX accidentally transferred around 103 BTC to cold wallets, which include only the late Cotten had access. The total is almost identical to the amount of bitcoin that was just moved.
At the time, the firm said it would work with management to retrieve the cryptocurrency from cold wallets.
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The mysterious death of QuadrigaCX’s founder and CEO, followed by the stock market collapse, had sparked conspiracy theories that the founder faked his own death as part of a fraudulent exit scam.
The story was the subject of a 2022 Netflix documentary.
In 2014, years before his death, Cotten said on a podcast that the best way to keep private keys was to print them out and keep them offline in a safe, and revealed that the exchange keeps its private keys offline in the company’s safe box kept at a bank.
It is unknown if BTC’s movement is related to Ernst & Young’s recovery efforts. Cointelegraph contacted the firm for comment, but did not immediately receive a response.
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