The accounting firm trying to recover more than $200 million owed to users of the now-defunct QuadrigaCX cryptocurrency platform has turned up only $28 million in assets – virtually all of it in cash.
Ernst and Young, which is overseeing bankruptcy proceedings, has issued a preliminary report saying it may not be possible to complete a full review of QuadrigaCX’s finances, given the poor state of the company’s bookkeeping.
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The report says the investigation has also been hampered by a lack of co-operation from some of QuadrigaCX’s business partners and the sheer volume of transactions under scrutiny, which number in the millions.
The accounting firm says that as of last month, QuadrigaCX and its associated holding companies owed 76,000 creditors a total of $215.7 million.
The online exchange offered an unregulated platform for users to store and trade digital assets like Bitcoin, Litecoin and Ethereum.
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Vancouver-based QuadrigaCX was shut down in January after its founder and sole director, 30-year-old Gerald Cotten of Fall River, N.S., died Dec. 9 while travelling in India.
The entire enterprise was thrown into a tailspin when it was revealed Cotten was the only person who knew the passwords to gain access to the company’s offline cryptocurrency reserves.