TL;DR Breakdown
- The Netflix crypto swindler documentary Trust No One: The Hunt for the Crypto King elicits a strong reaction from the crypto community.
- Gerald Cotten’s death remains a mystery.
April Fools’ Day has arrived, and Netflix is here to provide us with a fantastic crypto swindler expose. Trust No One: The Hunt for the Crypto King, Netflix’s latest real-crime documentary, seeks to solve the mystery of QuadrigaCX CEO Gerald Cotten’s death in 2018.
Crypto swindler behind $250 million theft
Gerald Cotten was only 30 years old when he died in India in December 2018. With his death, he took passcodes that secured $250 million in other people’s assets with him to the grave. In the months that followed, investigators discovered that Cotten had been transferring money from the exchange into his accounts and engaging in other suspicious behavior.
According to reports, the notorious crypto swindler died on a honeymoon in India due to Crohn’s disease. Netflix debuted the documentary on Wednesday, based on the mysterious demise of the now-defunct crypto exchange QuadrigaCX founder.
Given the unusual circumstances of his death and the vast sums of money he controlled, it’s no surprise that conspiracies formed. Investors and legal organizations attempted to solve the mystery of his death but found only a well-crafted Ponzi scheme.
The mysterious disappearance/death of the QuadrigaCX founder has sparked a slew of unclaimed and unresolved issues. Did Cotten fake his death? Was he given a new name and a redesigned face? Was he slain by a mob debt collector or an enraged lover? Why did the hospital in India that treated Cotten misspell his name on his death certificate, and why was it not corrected?
The Netflix 90-minute investigative documentary tries to solve the cryptographic mystery that many people are still trying to figure out today. The crypto swindler film depicts Cotten as a geeky, upbeat, likable CEO immersed in Bitcoin and passionate about technology.
According to the documentary, Cotten invested his money in islands, automobiles, and real estate during the cryptocurrency mania of 2017. He also spent time traveling around the world while running his exchange.
However, in 2018, Bitcoin plummeted, and investors rushed to withdraw their money but could not do so. He claimed that bankers did not trust crypto exchanges and had frozen his account due to the delay. In January 2019, Cotten’s wife, Jennifer Robertson, revealed that he had died in December. The exchange was shortly after entirely disabled.
While the investive documentary is entertaining and does not require any crypto experience to understand, many in the crypto community who have closely followed the story or got hurt by the collapse of the exchange found it particularly satisfying.
What is the truth? Is the crypto swindler still alive?
The problem with conspiracy theories is that they quickly tend to grow out of control and aren’t on the most up-to-date evidence. To this day, some investors are unconvinced that crypto swindler is truly dead. Most investors and viewers believe the crypto swindler faked his death and absconded with millions of dollars worth of client funds.
True crime aficionados are ravenous for con artists, fraudsters, and multi-million dollar cons. Following in the footsteps of Bad Vegan, Inventing Ana, and The Tinder Swindler, they can’t get enough of swindlers and scams that defraud millions.
Following the debut of The Tinder Swindler, Simon Leviev, better known as the Tinder Swindler, revealed that he amassed his fortune through Bitcoin. According to Leviev, he acquired Bitcoins in 2011 when they were worth nothing.
In January 2019, Ontario’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, co-founded by Cotten in 2013, QuadrigaCX, was shut down. In April 2019, the exchange filed for bankruptcy with CA$215 million ($172 million) in debts and only CA$28 million ($22 million) in assets, as reported by The Ottawa Citizen.
Earlier this year, Cryptopolitan reported that the chief financial officer of Wonderland, who goes by the name OxSifu on Twitter, was identified as Michael Patryn. Michael is an ex-convict and co-founder of bankrupt Canadian crypto exchange QuadrigaCX. Are there a lot of crypto scams surrounding the QuadrigaCX? Are both of its founder’s crypto swindlers? Is it just bad luck, or is it something more sinister? The rumors never cease.
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