Lost $422,000 - Former BitTorrent Software Engineer was one of the victims of QuadrigaCX

Lost $422,000 - Former BitTorrent Software Engineer was one of the victims of QuadrigaCX.

Tong Zou, a Canadian citizen who moved to the U.S. when he was 23 years old was a former Software Engineer at BitTorrent and Walmart. He has lost all of his life saving on QuadrigaCX, the largest crypto exchange in Canada.

Read More about Canada Crypto Exchange Cannot Repay Their Clients $190 Million here.

On February 1, an affidavit filed with the Nova Scotia Supreme Court claimed that the CEO of QuadrigaCX Gerald Cotten passed away with the sole control over the exchange’s cold wallets containing $190 million worth of crypto.

Following the incident, sadly it has become unlikely for the victims of the QuadrigaCX case to receive their money back.

Story On How Tong Zou Lost His Life Savings on a Crypto Exchange

Near at the end of 2018, after working hard for more than 7 years for major U.S.-based corporations, Zou decided to move back to Canada and settle down. One of his plan when he moved back to Canada is to purchase an apartment.

Zou was manage to obtained $422,000 in savings throughout his time in the U.S working as a highly regarded software engineer at big company like BitTorrent and Walmart.

“I was going to use that money for a deposit on an apartment, but now I can’t do that anymore. And now I’m currently searching for a job, so it’s kind of a bad time for me,” Zou said, speaking to Bloomberg in an interview.

Due to high conversion rates and fees involved in transferring his savings to Canada, Zou converted the funds to crypto, deposited to QuadrigaCX, converted it to Canadian dollars, and filed a withdrawal request in October 2018.

After four months, the QuadrigaCX incident was publicized, which industry experts including Kraken CEO Jesse Powell believe it to be “unbelievable,” Zou realized he may not be able to gain access to his savings again.

“It’s all my savings, so I’m just living on what little I have left and trying to start over. It pretty much took everything away from me. I wasn’t using it for trading — I just wanted to move my money over to my Canadian bank account. What I didn’t know was that my withdrawal would be pending or incomplete and it never got deposited in my bank account. I’ve been waiting four months so far,” he said.

So far, more than 115,000 users are said to be a victims by this case.

In recent weeks, some researchers have claimed that QuadrigaCX may not even have the cold wallets like they claimed to have.

The Wall Street Journal reported that independent researcher James Edwards could not find any evidence to support the existence of a Bitcoin cold wallet allegedly containing $92.3 million worth of BTC.

Similarly, Taylor Monahan, the CEO of MyCrypto, said that she also could not link any of the main wallets of QuadrigaCX to an Ethereum cold wallet or a reserve.