Over the weekend, more than 100 bitcoins related to the collapsed Canadian crypto exchange QuadrigaCX were moved from cold wallets, which were untouched for three years. QuadrigaCX owed thousands of users about $200 million in bitcoins when it collapsed.
EY, the trustee for QuadrigaCX’s estate, claimed in February 2019 that it lost custody of 100 BTC after moving them to QuadrigaCX-operated cold wallets it couldn’t access. Bitcoin was valued $355,000 (C$470,000) at the time.
The bitcoin in these addresses remained locked until Friday, when the coins left addresses between 6:52 and 7:14 p.m. ET.
Magdalena Gronowska, a bankruptcy inspector and creditor member of the committee, said EY didn’t relocate funds. At the time of publication, 104.34 BTC were gone from Quadriga’s wallets, equivalent to almost $1.7 million (C$2.4 million).
Many of these funds are in different wallets. The amounts supplied from each wallet match 2019 deposits. The wallets are 1HyYMMCdCcHnfjwMW2jE4cv9qVkVDFUzVa, 1JPtxSGoekZfLQeYAWkbhBhkr2VEDADHZB, 1MhgmGaHwLAvvKVyFvy6zy9pRQFXaxwE9M, 1ECUQLuioJbFZAQchcZq9pggd4EwcpuANe, and 1J9Fqc3TicNoy1Y7tgmhQznWrP5AVLXj9R.
“Bankruptcy Inspectors are aware QuadrigaCX funds have moved. Thank you to blockchain investigators for following flows, we’re working to gather more information and I hope we are able to recover stolen funds,” Gronowska said.
Blockchain detective zachxbt tweeted that approximately 70 BTC went to Wasabi, a crypto mixing service. Early reports from EY indicated Cotten was the only one who could access QuadrigaCX’s funds. Investigators said Cotten didn’t keep clear documents, thus recovering consumer payments has taken four years.
QuadrigaCX is Still Under Regulatory Crosshairs
The Canada Revenue Agency, which is in charge of enforcing tax laws across the country, is also looking into QuadrigaCX to see whether or not it submitted its taxes in the correct manner while it was still in operation.
A source said the CRA inquiry stopped the bankruptcy process.
Meanwhile, Michael Patryn, better known by his alias ‘Sifu,’ who was a co-founder of the defunct Canadian cryptocurrency exchange QuadrigaCX, has recently established a Decentralized Finance (DeFi) platform that is called UwU Lend.
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