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Software Engineer Loses Life Savings in Quadriga Imbroglio (bloomberg.com)
Tong Zou wasn't a stereotypical crypto bro bent on accumulating flashy trophies such as Lamborghinis when he deposited his life savings into Quadriga CX's digital exchange. The 30-year-old software engineer, who'd been working in California for seven years, just wanted to save a few bucks on transfer fees after deciding to move to Vancouver. It proved to be a C$560,000 ($422,000) mistake. From a report: "It's all my savings, so I'm just living on what little I have left and trying to start over," Zou said in a phone interview Friday from Vancouver, where he has been living out of an AirBnB for the past month. "It pretty much took everything away from me." Zou is one of Quadriga's 115,000 clients who are out of luck after the sudden death of the firm's founder left C$190 million in cryptocurrencies protected by his passwords unretrievable. The exchange has halted operations and was granted protection from creditors on Feb. 5 in Nova Scotia Supreme Court in Halifax.
"crypto bro bent on accumulating flashy trophies" ? Misandry much?
software engineers are perfectly capable of charting out the future of the species in spaaaaaaaaaace
Not sorry.
Wasn't the most recent news that there were suspicious circumstances about how much $ was in the coin purse, and whether the guy actually died or was had his death faked?
It doesn't matter what you're doing, but there is an old saying about not keeping all of your eggs in one basket. Sometimes even incredibly intelligent people are capable of horrible foolishness.
Not your Bitcoin. It boggles my mind that someone would entrust their life savings on a single crypto exchange. At least spread it out to a few different ones, the cost to withdraw Bitcoin on quadriga was nothing ( they paid the fee ). A $100 trezor would also have been a great part of the strategy.
Because that sure sounds like a possibility. While he can't get the money back now, I hope the IRS and the Canadian equivalent are looking at this closely, since this is INTERNATIONAL commerce, not just interstate commerce, and deserves all the scrutiny it can get so people understand the consequences of flaunting the rules.
Losing the money is bad, but having it publicized you were dodging taxes while fleeing the country in the process....
He used this cryptocurrency in an attempt to get around the laws and banking regulations of the US and Canada, and now we're supposed to feel sorry for him?
I mean, it's always sad when folks lose everything. But it's not like this guy was particularly innocent in what he was doing.
Check your premises.
"life savings in a crypto coin"
that's all I needed to read.
At least he avoided losing his life savings because of a collapse of the global banking system.
n/t
Who would be stupid enough to do this?
There's a saying in precious metals that if you don't hold the physical gold, then you don't own any gold. Why do people who buy crypto let someone else hold it for them? I have a bitcoin wallet printed out around here somewhere with a couple bucks worth on it. It's immune to the death of a business CEO failure mode.
And then there is password escrow. I don't understand why organizations don't enforce password escrow systems. Put the password somewhere secure to be used in the event of an emergency. Verify that the password is still secure periodically.
People who are looking to save a few bucks, or dodge taxes, by avoiding reliable services, should not be surprised when their unreliable service disappears with their money.
You can accumulate a "life savings" when you've barely lived? I dunno but saving up $500k in a matter of a few years of your career seems like you either got lucky or you're very successful and are going to be just fine.
People who puts their savings in cryptocurrency shouldn't have the money to begin with and deserves to lose it all.
Any of you chubby dweebs want to put your savings in some coin bullshit, just give me your money. Then I'll skullfuck you and your mother and call it a day.
Before investing your life savings into something, it would be wise to do a lot of research into what you're doing. With all the disaster stories from Bitcoin (Mt. Grox) you'd think someone would at least look into history to realize that although there might be legitimate Exchanges, some are completely unregulated scams as well.
I mean to state the obvious, that was a pretty silly idea.
Like, even using Norbert's Gambit with something like DLR is a risk, but doing this with crypto is just insane.
Still, at least the guy is 30. I mean, losing all your savings due to one big mistake, even a really dumb one, is going to be life altering at any age.. but at least this isn't some 50 year old just about to retire. He's got time to recover.
If you don't hold your own keys, you don't hold your own crypto. Clearly not a "crypto bro." should have held this coins on a hardware device.
The great thing about cryptocurrency is that we no longer need centralized entities such as banks or exchanges. Why not keep all that digital cash in one or several wallets that you control? What would possess someone to send it instead to a completely unregulated, unsupervised and unvetted exchange that turned out to be one guys server? I'd get nervous about moving a couple 100k between banks - proper banks.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
I love how cryptocurrency is like a history lesson for Libertarians with regressive economic attitudes. They get to learn the hard way why each discrete financial regulation we have today was enacted.
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
We need to hold a séance. I need to talk to someone.
All hold hands round the server...
I know many people don't trust banks and want to save money with cryptocurrencies and such, but the very concept that if the CEO dies of an exchange everyone involved loses all of their money because only he had the password is so utterly inane and stupid that I can't believe it exists in the real world today. Banks at least have redundant systems not reliant on any one person and FDIC insurance to cover some losses.
These people deserve to lose their money. I feel no remorse for them. This one guy controlled the money of 115,000 people under QuadrigaCX, nearly $190M and it's all gone. No wonder people think he faked his death in India.
https://www.ccn.com/wheres-the-missing-150-million-crypto-exchange-quadrigacxs-fiasco-gets-weirder-with-new-research
https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/details-emerging-on-death-of-crypto-ceo-gerald-cotten-report-1990689
Come on, guys ... either Cryptocurrency has been smeared with magical unicorn poop and is free from all regulations, or you are basically playing in an unregulated financial market where you have no recourse and apparently don't understand that.
You can't have it both ways. There were no legal protections in place.
You might as well be having the guys from your local loan shark or drug dealer hold your money for you at this point.
Sorry, but you gave your life savings to an entity which is under no regulation whatsoever, and this is apparently a 'feature' of cryptocurrency.
So when you lose your money, and have no recourse, this is what you signed up for.
I feel bad for this guy, but if you put your entire savings into something like this, you don't then get to whine that your unregulated financial vehicle shows all of the limitations of being an unregulated thing.
What made anybody think this entity was trustworthy in the first place?
That's right but not relevant here. He wasn't do that not as an investment
It's incredibly relevant - he literally took all his eggs (money) and put them in one basket (Enquadrdriofomaligo or whatever it was called).
It doesn't matter if the purpose was investment or short term transfer.
Same reason why when traveling you would not get a bunch of travelers checks and keep them all in the same place. (not that anyone uses travelers checks anymore, but still).
He was moving to Canada from the US and wanted to save money on conversion fees
Unstated: also wanted to avoid Canadian taxes on said money.... and he paid the ultimate conversion fee instead.
It's not that I don't feel somewhat sorry for him, but I think he was way more foolish than unlucky. "unlucky" is almost always just another way to say "didn't really think through possibilities".
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
No. The answer is always "No".
That is what cryptocurrency should be called. Because that is just what it is.
Corporatism != Free Market
I'm not sure "saving on fees" was the real motivation here. Tax avoidance sounds a lot more likely. In any case, ouch. Note to all 30 year olds: just because you're smart in one area doesn't mean you're master of all. Be careful. What you don't know CAN hurt you. Hard lesson to learn but I'm not sure which lesson is relevant here.
If the guy was just trying to save bank fees, then the lesson is "banks exist and charge fees for a reason and now you know why".
If he was trying to avoid taxes, the lesson is "you want to operate outside the law you better be ready for the wild, wild west, baby!".
When one person holds the key to your wealth it better be you personally.
How many users were aware that a single person controlled a key that if lost would wipe out their money?
Work Safe Porn
They get to learn the hard way why each discrete financial regulation we have today was enacted.
It's not like countless people have not lost money from highly regulated banks as well.
I've lost way more money on bullshit fees and predatory practices than I've ever lost through cryptocurrency. At least there I can be in some control over maintaining my own wallet if I wish.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Bwahaha this guy's an idiot! When you have 6-digit amounts of money, you don't put such a large fraction of it in any one bank, never mind in some sketchy-ass cryptocurrency exchange! His net worth must've been all over the fucking place since it was basically tied to cryptocurrency values! Did he look at his life savings losing and earning (but mostly losing) the value of a high-end sports car every day and think "Yes, this is fine"!?
Oh, and there's the fact moving such quantities of money through such unaccountable mechanisms likely amounts to some kind of white-collar crime - or is at least an indication that he's likely engaged in some. Could be another hilarious self-own in the making!
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
If you're going to invest in crypto currencies, then, you better be prepared to lose it all. It's no different than if you invested all your money in one company's stock and then that company went belly up the next day. Crypto currencies are not banks or credit unions, they are most likely not insured like a bank/credit union inside the US would be.
I still don't believe for a microsecond that a) this guy is actually dead and b) that this crypto is inaccessible.
You can bet that when the brouhaha calms down those funds will be quietly and privately transferred out using some zk-snarks currency.
I'm not one to say I told you so, but...
https://youtu.be/9AajslFuPro
You are welcome on my lawn.
To have $422K by the time you're 30 is pretty good.
Something about putting eggs in a basket applies here.
Yeah, I would have been sad for him, if he had actually worked hard, preferably to create something great or good, and lost what he deserved and earned.
But I'm not ever gonna cry for somebody who merely makes money. Be it through some cryptocurrency or other finance industry trickery, or by commanding others to work and stealing half their earnings for the "responsibility" and "risk"... of firing the closest pawn and carrying on when something goes tits up.
You know why?
Because I actually had to work for my money. I treated my clients fairly. I earned it.
So I'm not gonna let some leech have me be his dancing monkey for money that he didn't work for! That's theft! That's prison for him! (At least in a world that isn't ruled by those leeches.)
Umm, people who actually WORK don't have "clients".
Fields that have "clients" are a first-world luxury, which pretty much would make you a leech, now wouldn't it?
He was supposedly just moving money around (was it legal? I don't know), but I wouldn't give that amount of money to some unknown, startup company even for a millisecond. That amount of money only gets moved around from credit union to credit union with wires, as far as I'm concerned. I wouldn't even do a cashier's check for that amount of money.
I don't respond to AC's.
It pretty much took everything away from me.
Isn't that the whole point of the buttcoin scheme? To part idiots and their money?
LOL @ this dumbass thinking he was the special snowflake who was gonna hit the lottery and now is bawwwing for sympathy.
I have exactly 10% of my worth in cryptocurrencies. Even that amount is purely gamble/speculative because in 2012-13 I was mining and happened to hit gold for a few coins and have never moved them. I have held on to these coins through the tough parts. I cashed out a few bucks when it was at $20k but nowadays I just trade and rake in the cash.
Its pretty common to put your life savings with one bank or brokerage firm.
That is just a little more stupid than what this guy did to my mind. It's "insured" but what happens in the event of a truly huge failure or complete market crash? Insurance only works to a point.
I have multiple banks, brokerages. Those are all independent from what my wife has. Why would you NOT keep several sources to store income, rather than risk losing it all?? It's really easy to have multiple money stores, just make sure they are documented so you remember.
The crypto would have been better off in a personal hardware wallet: providing he took proper precautions
Totally agree there. Then he could have had multiple forms of backup. I generally try to use exchanges as just that, and keep funds in a wallet I can control. I do keep some with the exchanges though just as yet another possible source...
But I wouldn't have piped it all through one exchange, through one currency... would have done some largish amount in cash as well, even with the fees.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Can't lose your life savings if you aren't allowed to own things!
At least from the tone of the article, it doesn't sound like he is playing the pity card or blaming anyone but himself, so I'll give him credit for that.
There are much safer while still being cheaper ways of exchanging money using securities, usually using dual listed ETFs like DLR(.TO). Maybe not as cheap as this scheme, but the only real risk is if the exchange rate goes to shit during the week or so this all takes, compared to the colossal risk associated with anything crypto related.
What's the big deal I know people who still have college debt at 30 and not a single $ of savings. He'll get over it.
It seems all(?) commenters here think, the owner is really died!
Look at how public interest in cryptocurrencies died (for a while now)!
Is it really hard to guess that the business was going bad for a while & the owner decided to runaway w/ all customer money, instead of declaring bankruptcy?
Why the owner decided to go to India? :-)
Supposedly, "to build an orphanage"!
Is it hard to guess he went there because it was cheap/easy to buy a fake dead certificate?
If he is really dead then where is the body?
Is anybody saw/verified the body?
"Deposited his life savings into Quadriga CX's digital exchange" were the stupidity keywords that convinced me not to feel sorry for him.
After all of the Bitcoin exchanges that have failed over the past few years, why do people still DO this?
Search youtube: Zhou Tonged
Lol :-)
He should have known a Quadriga Imbroglio was a bad place to stash his life savings - Alfa Romeos are notoriously unreliable.
When we find the founder in India with our 120 million in crypto, we're going to be angry with him.
This guys loss is MY gain.
I'm not buying his story. He has nearly half a million just sitting in the bank and decides to dump it all into a currency exchange to avoid conversion rates? That seems highly unlikely. He'd have been much better off buying stocks, or just taking the hit in the conversion rate than dealing with the Bitcoin transfer mark-up. I looked into this a while back and, even when Bitcoin was level or edging upward, the gap between buying and selling digital currency was greater than the cost of converting between USD and CAD.
So either he's telling the truth and didn't do his homework, or he is lying and got busted when the exchange went belly up.
"Deposited his life savings into Quadriga CX's digital exchange" were the stupidity keywords that convinced me not to feel sorry for him.
After all of the Bitcoin exchanges that have failed over the past few years, why do people still DO this?
TFS says he, "just wanted to save a few bucks on transfer fees" moving from CA to Vancouver, so he probably just intended to park the money for a very short time while he moved and found a new bank. Seems dumb in any case. Nerdwallet lists the average international bank wire fees at $45 outgoing and $13 incoming, so he risked $422K US to save $58. Cheaper still would have been to bring some cash, deposit a check to open a new account and use a CC for a bit. Some life lessons are hard, but "penny wise and pound foolish" doesn't have to be one of them.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Yeah, that is why I am really skeptical of they guy's story. If all he was really trying to do was save money on transfering between banks, transfering all his money into an exchange (which has a a fee), then finding enough sellers to convert nearly half a million dollars into crypto (which also has fees), then later find enough buyers to convert it back (more fees) and finally transfer it back to a bank? That makes zero sense unless he also believed it would be making money in the process.
plus that third currency is extremely volatile
I had many of the same thoughts you did, but especially this one I don't see questioned my many other people - moving 500k into BTC or the like, even if only for a day is a huge risk in terms of volatility. What if that is the day BTC decided to take a 20% drop just for fun? In fact you can almost be sure that speculators noting such a large volume of purchase would figure out some way to screw the guy short term to make him panic and sell...
I still see BTC as a viable investment, but as short term storage it is nuts and then there are the other factors you mentioned. He was absolutely trying to do something.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
pound foolish. Why would a smart person risk that much money on something as notoriously unreliable as bitcoin just to save a few $ in wire transfer fees?
This is only interesting to Slashdot as it's a fringe crypto currency. It would be less interesting, but not much more of a duh if the headline was "chump pays guys he doesn't know to drive a van full of cash across border, but never hears from them again"
It's kind of amazing he admitted this, as I THINK (but am too lazy to find out) that he probably violated cash xfer terrorism laws in the USA.
Buy a house for $500,000 stop payment and forget to give the bank the keys. I'm sure the Supreme Halifax court will grant him protection from creditors too right? Oh shit the justice system functions the same way in Canada as it does here in US. Good luck bro. You are better off bankrupting entire states with greedy lending practices and asking for a bailout afterwards. Then the poor idiots with faith in the USD foot the bill through inflation.
Jesus Christ /., you're scraping the bottom of the barrel here.
This fucking moran earned his fate.
He already paid U.S. taxes on all the money when he earned it in the U.S. And there's no Canadian law requiring you to pay any Canadian taxes on money you bring into the country.
I've seen you call everyone on this post a "snowflake".
You see, when everyone has a problem with you, the problem isn't everyone. The problem is you.
Maybe you're the snowflake here.
He lost all his money AND moved to Vancouver.
Oh Kendall, do you never tire of fallacies and logical errors? Seriously, go to fucking school you retard. Your own personal experience is not the limit of the universe. You might just be surprised by how much you don't fucking know if you gave it chance..
How am I the snowflake, Sinji? I'm not the incel being triggered by someone being called a "bro."
Dunning-Kruger effect. They think they are smarter than all the other idiots who were scammed.
why do people still DO this?
Metal poisoning. It's all the aluminum in the air.
what the fuck is "snowflake" and an "incel"? jesus you millennials have had your whole vocabulary altered by your own brain damaged impression of what society should be. grow the fuck up, nancy. you're never going to make it in this world whining about "snowflakes" and "incels".
There's no tax imposed on money coming into Canada that I can find, other than the CBSA wants you to declare if you'll be bringing in more than $10K when you arrive. They want you to declare it, and they'll fine you (and potentially confiscate it) if you don't, but there's no tax. This guy is an idiot or up to something shady...
And also - Vancouver? Why would you choose to immigrate to the most expensive city on the west coast... the cost of living there is double anywhere else, he must be paying a small fortune for the AirBNB alone!
When did the retards from the organized crime and slave foundation get mod points again? Only god comments modded down and coke-headed psychopathic money leech comments modded up.
A farmer has clients. ... Fuck off!
A car mechanic does.
A desert bazaar importer/exporter does.
So their OMGWORKINALLCAPS is not "real(TM) work" because they're not slaves?
It's only in your little brainwashed American psychopath capitalist world, where the slaves act like their slave position is the real correct way of life as they have been told to think. Good thing you're currently at your rope's end; going down the drain quicker than Hillartrumpobamadubbyaclinteney can say something stupid and evil again.
He should've invested in tulips instead.
How am I the snowflake, Sinji? I'm not the incel being triggered by someone being called a "bro."
Incels, snowflakes? Have I stumbled upon the comments section of Youtube?
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
why do people still DO this?
Metal poisoning. It's all the aluminum in the air.
Chemtrails.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Apparently, you can take it with you.
But really... A software engineer who puts his life savings entirely in cryptocurrency is not a good software engineer. He should have known better.
Apparently you have never used a crypto exchange. If the exchanges are done properly like on gdax you don't pay a penny. I in total probably traded tripple digit thousands on there during the bubble and never paid a penny
This unfortunate fellow uncovered a failure mode of a technology. Pitot tubes icing over (Air France Flight 447 had iced over pitot tubes); faulty sensors and an aggressive safety system (The Lion Air 737 crash); the recent Wells Fargo outage reportedly due to a data center issue highlighted some issues with a cashless econonomy.
Very unfortunate but safety rules are written in blood (and money).
Why do people still DO this? a) They don't read /. or Bloomberg or keep up-to-date with crypto news; b) they live in this bubble, c) they don't wear tinfoil hats d) they got money to burn e) all of the above
Slashdot comments reached Youtube level quite a while ago I'm afraid. ;)
Oops...sorry I forgot to add the obligatory YOU STUPID FAGGOT!!
Those are main stream media terms to demean anyone under 40.
Smart people don't trust their cryptocurrency to exchanges. They only keep what they're immediately buying or selling at the exchange and keep the rest of it offline, whether in a hardware wallet (like one of the Trezor or Ledger devices) or even in a paper wallet (such as the ones produced by bitaddress.org) stashed away in a safe place. Instead, for want of a minute and a piece of paper, the subject of TFA is out over $400k.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
How am I the snowflake, Sinji? I'm not the incel being triggered by someone being called a "bro."
Panda the Bear wuvs you Harry. Do you wuv panda back?
Tong Zou sounds like one of those oh-so-smart know-it-all techies who think that fees and taxes don't apply to them because they're smarter than everyone else. Personally, I'm very satisfied with this outcome. How many people have suffered from high rents or being automated out of a job because of people like him? Serves him right.
The only logical reason is he thought he would save money on "fees", most likely those of 2 government taxing authorities.
I feel sorry for this guy. And yes I think it's a very bad idea to put all your savings into some unregulated storage, but still.
Health is more worth than money and he seems to make the best of it, so good luck to him.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
...and now he's dead!
What a totally, fucked up company! I think some of the higher ups could be facing Bubba's dick up their asses in prison for this theft.
I thought maybe he was just not that bright but after reading his entire CV I don't buy that. This guy was coding payment systems and stock analysis software over 12 years ago already. He is Canadian and obviously has Canadian bank accounts. Practically every major bank in Canada asks if you want to link a US bank account to your Canadian one for free. Hell, many Canadians prefer to keep a decent portion of their savings in the US linked account. There is no exchange fees or anything for this. Even if he wanted to blanket bank transfer the whole amount over it would only cost at most $75 CAD.
There is more to the story, that's for sure. Like maybe he was claiming expenses for tax deductions in the US but really the "losses/deductions" were actually just money going into crypto. In that case I can see why he'd just want to flip his money all back to CAD and come back home. He is not an American citizen so the American world wide tax laws won't apply to him after this year.
Anyway, something is screwed here.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Quadriga Imbroglio, again, again and then again. I double dog dare you!
how long it would take for 115,000 clients with distributed password cracking software to crack the exchange keys?
Certainly sounds like they've got a lot of motivation to give it a go, and a reasonable proportion of them would have access to decent hardware.
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
Why do people continue to ignore that massive warning?
Reminder for the younger folks here on Slashdot: There once was an energy trading company called "Enron". Enron had fantastic growth, on paper and in the press anyways, while it was a supposed pioneer in all sorts of energy-related business activites. It essentially blackmailed California over electricity to the point of the state experiencing "rolling blackouts" that eventually cost the governor his job in a recall. Enron also famously invented the concept of "carbon trading" and a market place for things called "carbon offsets". At the peak of all the hype, the company executives encouraged all their employees to put all their retirement investments into Enron stocks (later investigations would reveal that these same executives were not doing this and were in many cases selling). Many employees were entralled with the growth potential of their investments in the much-hyped Enron and put all their money into those stocks and when the company suddnely collapsed they were all completely financially wiped out.
All the news networks ran endless stories about all the people destroyed by this and the lesson everybody was told to learn was that it is extremely unwise to put all your financial eggs into one basket. It's a lesson that has been taught repeatedly throughout history (famously by the Great Depression) but the Enron lesson was rather recent. Some people who seem otherwise intelligent just seem to be immune to being even slightly wise.
Probably would cost him much more on currency conversion from USD to CAD. Maybe he wanted to pull it off using crypto exchange which has lower fees (if they offered CAD). For this amount it's better to use Schwab or some other proper forex trader.
There is a classic comedy movie stariing George C Scott called "The Flim Flam Man" in which the con artist character played by Mr Scott explains it well. He points out that the best people to target in a scam are the ones who are trying to get away with something, the ones who think they are going to get some benefit by doing something somewhat unethical or illegal. They are the ones who will act a little recklessly and do business with somebody of dubious ethics, and they are also the ones less likely to run to the police when they realize they have been conned.
This guy seems to have been willing to do soomething very financially dangerous (putting all his money into the hands of somebody not an actual financial professional with insurance) in order to get around tax rules. It all seemed vey clever to him, no doubt, and he probably thought himself smarter than most people in his evasion of taxes --- until he lost everything.
His real nightmare might not even be over, since if the taxing authorities get interested in this they could go after him for unpaid taxes and he would probably still be liable for all the unpaid taxes and penalties and might even be criminally liable.
What is they say about putting all your eggs in one basket? Plenty of people manage to get by with 0 in savings let alone around half a fucking million. Fuck off. No one cares.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
Incel basically means 'virgin'. Somehow it's used as a generic insult against all men these days. Really says a lot about the dumbasses that use it.
I'd argue that anyone who uses incel as an insult is likely the real incel in the room.
See subject. Repeat until it sinks in.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Most definitely ill-gotten gains. Why else would you prefer this over a $50 wire transfer fee unless you're trying to hide the source of your funds from government authorities?
Ok people place your bets, what really happened here?
A. Cold wallet never existed, founder faked his own death, transferred funds out long time ago, without the knowledge of his wife or the board. Nobody will roll over because nobody actually knows anything.
B. Cold wallet never existed, founder faked his own death, transferred funds out long time ago, with the full knowledge of his wife and the board, who were all in on the conspiracy to redistribute the funds after the bankruptcy proceedings were long over. Somebody will roll over faced with the possibility of extradition to the United States and life in a U.S. Federal "pound-me-in-the-ass" prison.
C. Cold wallet never existed, founder told his wife this fact and the whereabouts of the actual funds, she lured him to India and killed him with some spicy Vindaloo. Board never involved. She may or may not roll over under interrogation faced with the possibility of extradition to the United States and life in a U.S. Federal "pound-me-in-the-ass" prison.
D. Cold wallet never existed, founder told his wife this fact and the whereabouts of the actual funds, she lured him to India and killed him with some spicy Vindaloo. Board was in on the conspiracy to redistribute the funds, and are now covering their asses, but somebody will roll over faced with the possibility of extradition to the United States and life in a U.S. Federal "pound-me-in-the-ass" prison.
we live in a world where a thirty year old can be "smart" enough to amass $420K in saving, but dense enough to invest it all in crypto.
Not to mention that "... the sudden death of the firm's founder left C$190 million in cryptocurrencies protected by his passwords unretrievable." Seems like a lot of people didn't do due diligence. Or this is a cover story, and the money actually went somewhere else. Bernie Madoff could've had a big win if he'd faked his own death that the right time. (But, hey, that guy's still a player: cornered the market on Swiss Miss in prison.)
That was a severe loss, but it was only seven years' savings, and he's only 30. This will only be a temporary setback for him. If this is indeed money he saved from working seven years, then he has apparently been saving $2700 to $3500 a month, depending on whether he's been putting it in CDs at 1% or investing it at 7%. If he keeps doing this, then by the time he's 60, he'll probably be worth $1.5 to $4 million dollars US, depending on the interest rate. Indeed, as he gets older and his income increases, he should be able to increase his monthly savings rate, which will make him even richer. He's also learned from the school of hard knocks, so I expect him to die a wealthy man.
He made a totally idiotic move.