Canada's largest cryptocurrency exchange QuadrigaCX owes its customers 250 million Canadian Dollars, which equates to 190 million US dollar and cannot access most of the funds according to reports.
This comes in the wake of financial troubles with the exchange platform when its 30 year founder Gerald Cotten died of Crohn's disease in India.
QuadrigaCX left thousands of its customers with frozen accounts. The exchange kept most of the assets in cold wallets which are secured by digital security keys. Gerald Cotten was solely responsible for the wallets and corresponding keys.
Cotten's widow explains that the computer from which Gerald carried out the company's business is encrypted and nobody knows the password of the recovery key.
There were roughly 115,000 users had balances in their accounts. Over the fast few days allegations of fraud have additionally appeared in this story. According to crypto medication research, QuadrigaCX is a scam, there is allegedly no proof of the existence of the 'Cold Wallets', to which the exchange had reportedly lost the access.
This is why it's risky to have your balances on exchanges, because you are not the sole owner of your balances when its on an exchange.
It can shut and freeze your accounts anytime.