Suspicious Timing of Crypto CEO’s alleged death

On 1st February 2019, news broke that Gerald Cotten, the CEO of cryptocurrency exchange QuadrigaCX, had died in India — and taken the passwords to hundreds of millions of dollars worth of digital money with him to the grave. Many have pointed out that something does not add up. Here, I add another strange coincidence. Now I introduce how the India connection makes things even more suspicious.

As many have pointed out, India is an ideal place to die…if you are faking your death.

But what makes things more interesting is that the current rulemakers of that country are strongly opposing cryptocurrency, even though it will mean that India will miss the blockchain technology bus. To quote a 22nd January 2019 article,

In the past 12 months, global Government attitudes to cryptocurrency have begun to diverge significantly. This was highlighted recently by the action of India’s Central Bank (RBI) informing all Indian banks that they are prohibited from providing services to cryptocurrency businesses. Following this, many of the major banks in India have forced customers to sign a declaration that they will not conduct any form of crypto transaction through their account, and have warned them that the account can be closed without notice if these transactions are found to have taken place.

RBI bans cryptocurrencies –time for the industry to take a stand – Coingeek.com

Now, events such as the alleged death of this CEO were reported in Western media with a grain of salt. But in Indian media, some outlets openly began raising doubts about the future of cryptocurrencies instead (read: regulation please). Take for example, this quote from a major Indian newspaper. Note the headline “…future of cryptos.”

Sad! That’s a lot of negative publicity for digital currencies, I tell you.

Indeed. Considering that digital currencies in general, including poster boy Bitcoin and its recent clones, have been going through a tough time since the beginning of 2018, after rallying to obscene highs in the previous few months, the Quadriga episode could raise more doubts over the way cryptocurrencies are managed across the globe.

Quadriga’s locked $140 million and the future of cryptos – The Hindu Business Line

Of the few, skilled Indians with the IT know-how to deal with crypto, most are clueless about it. And such incidents are used to spread the regulation narrative more efficiently. Or was that the whole point of the “incident?” Similar strange events have happened in the past. The most notable being the collapse of the leading Bitcoin exchange of its time, Mt. Gox. An in-depth analysis of the Quadriga case by Zerononcense has pointed towards a lot of strange and suspicious activity as well.

Indian media coverage of this event, in the context of increasing regulation of crypto needs to be further analyzed.