Have you ever heard of Gerald Cotten? Probably yes if you were into crypto during 2018-2019, because his case became one of the strangest and most disturbing stories in the entire ecosystem.

So, the guy was the CEO of QuadrigaCX, a Canadian exchange that had gained many customers. Young, charismatic, seemingly a billionaire in the crypto world. In 2018, he decided to go on his honeymoon in India with his wife. Normal, right? Then, on December 9th, he died in a hospital in Jaipur, officially due to complications from Crohn's disease. He was only 30 years old.

Up to this point, it's a personal tragedy. But then things get really strange.

A few days after Gerald Cotten's death, the exchange collapses. And here you discover the real problem: Cotten was the only one with access to the exchange's cold wallets. The only one. Inside were over $250 million in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, belonging to 115,000 clients. No backup. No shared passwords. No emergency protocols.

And so paranoia begins. Investigators start digging and find strange things: fund movements between personal and corporate wallets before his death, the hospital where he died was private, the death certificate had gaps. Devastated clients start requesting an exhumation of the body, convinced that Gerald Cotten had staged everything. Experts suggest he could have used mixers, tax havens, offshore wallets to disappear with the money.

Netflix made a documentary, and the question remains hanging: where did the $250 million go? And more importantly, was Gerald Cotten really dead?

This story has become the manifesto of why in crypto you can never have a single point of failure. One man cannot be simultaneously central bank, safe, and potential thief. QuadrigaCX is the warning that no one should forget.