Investing.com - Cryptocurrency prices were higher on Wednesday, as a report found that Quadriga employees sent nearly $400,000 to the cold wallet whose password was lost when its CEO Gerald Cotten passed away.
The report from Ernst & Young, who have been monitoring the bizarre case, found that the funds were transferred Feb. 6, just a day after EY was appointed as its monitor.
“On February 6, 2019, Quadriga inadvertently transferred 103 bitcoins valued at approximately $468,675 to Quadriga cold wallets which the Company is currently unable to access. The Monitor is working with Management to retrieve this cryptocurrency from the various cold wallets, if possible,” the report to the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia states.
Cotten died unexpectedly in India in early December and did not leave the password for access to a cold wallet. The firm only has access to its hot wallets, which are connected to the internet. However the wallets have less than $1 million, far from the C$180 million ($135.39 million) of digital coins are frozen in users accounts. The company owes C$250 million to 115,000 users.
Cryptocurrencies overall were slightly higher with the total coin market capitalization at $121 billion at the time of writing compared to $120 billion on Tuesday.
Bitcoin inched down 0.04% to $3,618.50 as of 8:10 AM ET (13:10 GMT) on the Investing.com Index.
Ethereum rose 1.76% to $123.53 and XRP gained 0.60% to $0.30034 while Litecoin was at $42.736, down 2%.
In other news, South Korean Bithumb is launching an exchange in the United Arab Emirates. The company signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the UAE-based firm Nvelop to form a joint venture, which will allow the company to expand into other Middle Eastern countries.