On-Chain investigator ZachXBT has revealed that over the weekend, more than one hundred bitcoins associated with the long-defunct Canadian cryptocurrency exchange QuadrigaCX were moved out of cold wallets, which were supposed to be beyond the reach of anybody, after having been inactive for nearly four years.
The addresses for the wallets are 1ECUQLuioJbFZAQchcZq9pggd4EwcpuANe, 1J9Fqc3TicNoy1Y7tgmhQznWrP5AVLXj9R, 1MhgmGaHwLAvvKVyFvy6zy9pRQFXaxwE9M, 1HyYMMCdCcHnfjwMW2jE4cv9qVkVDFUzVa, and 1JPtxSGoekZfLQeYAWkbhBhkr2VEDADHZB.
According to Zachxbt, the bulk of these funds, which he estimates to be around 70 BTC, seem to have been sent to Wasabi, a cryptocurrency mixing platform. In February 2019, observers of the blockchain determined that a certain collection of bitcoin addresses belonged to one of QuadrigaCX’s so-called cold wallets.
Since the passing of CEO Gerald Cotten, the exchange has said that it is unable to access these wallets, which hold the majority of the $190 million that is due to clients. During that time, the exchange stated that it was unable to access these wallets.
Following the strange demise of Cotten and the subsequent failure of the exchange, rumors began to circulate that the company’s founder had staged his own death as part of a fraudulent scheme to get out of the business.
Now, many are starting to believe this because according to documents filed with the court by the firm, Cotten was the only person responsible for transferring cash from the exchange’s hot wallet to the cold storage. However, Quadriga did not disclose the addresses of its cold wallets.
This led many researchers to attempt to track transactions in order to identify which wallets were in question and to determine whether or not these wallets actually contained the $136 million worth of cryptocurrencies that were rumored to be held in cold storage, including approximately $92 million worth of Bitcoin.
