A lawyer for users of the QuadrigaCX cryptocurrency exchange sent a letter to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police requesting that Quadriga’s deceased owner, Mr Cotten, be exhumed.
Mr Cotten died suddenly of complications relating to Crohn’s disease in 2018, and without divulging the password to his encrypted laptop, upon which a large amount of Quadriga users’ cryptocurrency was in “cold” (unnetworked) storage.
The lawyer requested the exhumation given the “questionable circumstances” around Mr Cotten’s death and to confirm that he is, in fact, deceased. Citing “decomposition concerns”, the lawyer requested the exhumation be completed no later than spring 2020.
The request comes as an independent monitor determines that Mr Cotten had used funds on Quadriga inappropriately, including for Quadriga’s operating costs.
At the time of Mr Cotten’s death, Quadriga was Canada’s largest cryptocurrency exchange.
