Wife of Cryptocurrency CEO Maintains She Watched Him Die

Gerald Cotten's death spurred plenty of grief, and not just for his friends and family—one of whom is "finally sharing her side of the story." The CEO of what was then Canada's biggest cryptocurrency exchange died in India from complications of Crohn's disease in December 2018; the passcodes to most of the $190 million of his clients' funds died with him. Many of those investors thought something smelled off. A year later, QuadrigaCX investors sent a letter to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police citing the "questionable circumstances" surrounding Cotten's death and requesting that his body be exhumed to verify his identity and cause of death. Now his widow, Jennifer Robertson, is speaking to the CBC, and sharing her experience in the aftermath of his death.

She maintains there's nothing suspicious about that death. "I saw Gerry die, I was holding his hand when he passed away. It was a terrible, terrible moment," she said, with the CBC noting she isn't entirely against the possibility of an exhumation. She says the fraud that investigators uncovered in the wake of Cotten's death—he'd been siphoning money from the exchange into his own accounts—was totally unknown to her. As for allegations that she saw people bring duffel bags of money to their home and didn't think to ask what was going on, she says she trusted Cotten, who'd wave off abnormalities as being due to the "anti-bitcoin" nature of banks. "He was the nicest, caring, most loving husband. He was my best friend. ... It's a possibility that I was wearing rose-colored glasses," she says. (Read the full interview.)