The founder died holding sole control of the cold-wallet keys. Investigation established there was also no meaningful accounting or segregation, and that the platform had operated as a Ponzi scheme.
Ontario Securities Commission later found a C$169M shortfall, most of it attributable to the founder's trading.
A custody arrangement only one person can operate fails completely when that person is unavailable. Death is not a risk, it is a certainty with unknown timing.
These are the custody configurations structurally exposed to this kind of event. It describes the failure class, not any individual holder.
Whether your own arrangement sits in one of those groups is the question our Custody Independence Standard is designed to answer, and the four questions in Is your custody setup actually safe? walk through it.
Ontario Securities Commission report, CCAA filings
Figures are as reported by the named sources. Proof of Custody has not independently reproduced the underlying analysis.
Proof of Custody, "QuadrigaCX" incident record, proofofcustody.io/incidents/quadrigacx-2018The founder died holding sole control of the cold-wallet keys. Investigation established there was also no meaningful accounting or segregation, and that the platform had operated as a Ponzi scheme. Reported loss: ~C$215M owed.
A custody arrangement only one person can operate fails completely when that person is unavailable. Death is not a risk, it is a certainty with unknown timing.
This class of failure could reach: bitcoin left on an exchange. It describes the failure class rather than any individual holder.