Man Loses His Entire $500,000 Savings In Cryptocurrency After Trader Dies With Password

Tong Zuo

A man has lost his life savings after investing all his funds with a cryptocurrency trader who passed away in 2018.

Tong Zuo recalled when he invested his money into Quadriga CX, and trusted the company's CEO and founder, Gerald William Cotten with the funds since he had password access to all his clients’ accounts.

The total amount of money held in Quadriga’s accounts is an estimated total of $250 million and caused 76,000 investors to lose out on their funds once Cotten passed away.

Zuo said he received most of the money from his parents and invested in cryptocurrency to avoid bank charges when he moved from the United States to Vancouver, Canada.

The now-closed Canadian-based company claims a legal matter with a bank is delaying the distribution of funds.

“I kept asking them: Where’s my money? – October, November, December – during all that time. They kept saying it was the lawsuit. I couldn’t get any sleep. I just prayed. I really prayed it wasn’t a scam. At that time, there was nothing I could do. There was no way of getting my money back. Once I deposited it, it was basically gone,” Zuo added.

Cotten’s wife, Jennifer Robertson, claims he promised to create a mechanism that will give her access to the passwords once he died but she never received them.

Zuo’s story and others has been featured in the Netflix documentary “Trust No One: The Hunt For The Crypto King.”