TORONTO (Reuters) - Canadian digital currency platform Quadriga inadvertently transferred almost C$470,000 ($355,226) worth of bitcoins to a storage that it is unable to access after the firm's founder died, a court-nominated monitor said in a report.
Quadriga, which owes a total of C$250 million to 115,000 users, filed for creditor protection last month after the sudden death of founder Gerald Cotten in December.
Cotten's main computer contained a "cold wallet" of cryptocurrencies, which is only accessible physically and not online, and his death left "in excess of C$180 million of coins in cold storage," Cotten's widow Jennifer Robertson said in an affidavit.
The report https://documentcentre.eycan.com/eycm_library/Quadriga%20Fintech%20Solutions%20Corp/English/1.%20Monitor's%20Reports/2.%20First%20Report%20of%20the%20Monitor/First%20Report%20of%20the%20Monitor%20dated%20February%2012,%202019.pdf by consultancy EY does not specify how the C$470,000 bitcoin transfer occurred, but it said it is making efforts to retrieve all cryptocurrencies from cold wallets.
The report also did not specify how many cold wallets there are. EY was not available for immediate comment.
EY said in the report that it has also identified and secured various devices used by Quadriga and Cotten.