Decentralized exchanges are crucial for the crypto industry, allowing tokens and coins to be bought, sold, staked, and stored. While most cryptocurrencies and exchanges are legitimate, focusing on security and privacy, this has not always been the case in the past.
In fact, one exchange, in particular, was used to scam users out of $200 million in crypto. This is the story of QuadrigaCX, its criminal owner, and the huge risks associated with the crypto industry.
What Was QuadrigaCX?
QuadrigaCX was a Canadian cryptocurrency exchange founded by Gerald “Gerry” Cotten and Michael Patryn in 2013. Because the crypto industry was a lot less diverse back then, QuadrigaCX only dealt in the trade of Bitcoin (though it soon developed to take on the likes of Ethereum and Litecoin). The company gradually grew over the years to amass over 350,000 customers by 2017 (though, by this point, Patryn was no longer involved in the venture).
Much of this growing customer base could be attributed to the Bitcoin boom in 2017. During that year, Bitcoin’s value surged from just $998 to almost $20,000, which resulted in a wave of new investments in the market and some healthy growth for a wide range of decentralized exchanges.
But this success was not to last. As we all know by now, the crypto market is unpredictable. We saw the extent of its volatility at the start of 2018 when the price of Bitcoin and other cryptos began to plummet and eventually crashed. This sent shock waves…
