Canadian Cryptocurrency owner "dies" ( or disappears) holding the only password to his clients $140M !

[Nirish guy]

So.......as reported below on the worldwide press this morning ......

A Canadian Bitcoin style cryptocurrency whizzkid has seemingly died ( or may have disappeared as some are suggesting with the one and ONLY password to all of his client's $140 million of digitally held money) and it seems our very own CDNMatt has dropped off the site again just as he went off to work on a "big project" eh.........I'm just saying like ...... ;-)


So, "C D M (M)"att ........perhaps short for "Canadian Digital Money Missing"...... well, he DID tell us that he was going to be very well off "soon" once his big project had paid out AND he said he'd be going to live very comfortably ( in hiding?) in some third world Country once he'd manage to buy his way in there with a dodgy business Visa to enable him to live with a harem of new boyfriends now didn't he ! OMG perhaps he was telling us all along eh and we were just too blind to see it .....smart guy eh !


Cryptocurrency exchange founder's death locks $140m

Canada's largest cryptocurrency exchange is unable to access millions in digital currency following the sudden death of its founder.

Quadriga has filed for creditor protection and estimates that about C$180m ($137m; £105m) in cryptocurrency coins is missing.


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-47123371

[cdnmatt]

No, I'm not like folks like bruce_nyc. I actually work for my money.

[Nirish guy]

Ohh Still here.........hmmm keeping up the cover eh, very smart, keeping a low profile until the dust settles and you can start blowing some of that $140m eh ! :-)

So and in all seriousness then ......so, what ( if anything) is the inside track on that particular case in the cyrpto world today then ?

Is it accepted that the guy really DID die without leaving the required password to anyone at all - especially as he knew he was already ill ?

Lets face it that sounds somewhat doubtful ( but not impossible I guess in that world) that that could even happen, especially when a business gets to that level of "turnover" ? surely and also surely that sort of business wouldn't just depend on ONE single password to enter his laptop to control everything - and even if so surely that password could be cracked by SOMEONE / the FBI etc anyway somehow given time ? OR is the feeling more that "no, he's more than likely just faked his own death and is away counting his good fortune elsewhere and somewhere warm with other peoples money already perhaps ??

[cdnmatt]

Well, the part of the one password is technically true. Most likely, they're talking about a BIP32 private key, which looks something like this:

xprv9wfNNZbY13yuzpXqFRFeyyvUw2Uzn73F5hAjoxfNPbbFtW HoMiC65kpPNht78L7VVtmHnkdSD3Zn1Gh59dnUdtVcUY5nbV43 LQocTqSDB5h

You can't just crack a password / key that long. If you lose that, then you simply lose access to all your funds, so that part is true.

Realistically though, I highly doubt it. I'm not sure about the legalities, but I do know Canadian parliament passed laws to regular exchanges like this a bit. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm guessing it was totally illegal for the CEO to horde the private key like that and not provide access to it to the board of directors of that compnay.

I never really did any business with that exchange itself, but that exchange was previously cavirtex.com, and I did do business with them. I can't quite remember, but I do remember problems / headaches with them, and the CEO was a shady character.

My guess is due to CoinSquare expanding rapidly in Canada and taken a good portion of the market share, this guy seen the writing on the wall that the demise of his company was near, so did a runner.

[latintopxxx]

cdnmatt...I love u...u r the best ever...always been a great fan of u and your superior intelligence and witty posts.

[cdnmatt]

Lay off the drugs, latin.

[Nirish guy]

they're talking about a BIP32 private key, which looks something like this: prv9wfNNZbY13yuzpXqFRFeyyvUw2Uzn73F5hAjoxfNPbbFtWH oMiC65kpPNht78L7VVtmHnkdSD3Zn1Gh59dnUdtVcUY5nbV43L QocTqSDB5h .

What a nightmare of a password ! And to think that I get frustrated and compain when the likes of booking. com INSIST that I have to use a capital letter in my password ! :-)

[cdnmatt]

Well, it all depends on how their software system is setup, but ultimately, a key such as that is required to send any funds across the bitcoin network.

Lots of times the user will never actually even see that key. Instead, they just choose a wallet password whatever they would like, then when the software generates a key like that, it will encrypt it via AES256 / AES512 using the wallet password. Then when a user wants to send funds, they just need to enter their wallet password, and it will decrypt the private key, so the user never actually has to handle the BIP32 key-pair itself.


Who knows how their system is setup, but regardless, yes losing one password / key is enough to lose $140m. That's why I think he did a runner instead of died, because no decent businessman would be stupid enough to have the only key / access to that much money. I'm guessing that was intentional, and he had been planning this for a while.

[Nirish guy]

Well if he didn't die he'd better be good at hiding as I'm guessing that some of his now ex-customers WILL ensure that he IS a dead man if they can ever catch up with him - and I'm guessing even WITH all that money it / he will be findable "somehow" to those in the know - and in THAT world I'm guessing there's enough shady characters to find you no matter WHERE you try and hide !

[cdnmatt]

Who knows, maybe the Russians found him and made him "accidentally" die.