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What really happened to Gerald Cotten? Netflix’s new true crime documentary, Trust No One: The Hunt for the Crypto King, looks at the millionaire’s mysterious death

STORYUmesh Bhagchandani
Gerry Cotten set up Canada’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange, QuadrigaCX. Photo: @Ysanireal/Twitter
Gerry Cotten set up Canada’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange, QuadrigaCX. Photo: @Ysanireal/Twitter
Netflix

  • Cotten amassed millions from setting up what was once Canada’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange, QuadrigaCX, and lived a lavish lifestyle
  • After his mysterious death during his honeymoon with wife Jennifer Robertson, investors were left without access to the US$250 million he reportedly stole

Riding the swindling trend, Netflix just released another gripping true crime documentary on its platform on March 30. “A group of investors-turned-sleuths try to unlock the suspicious death of cryptocurrency multimillionaire Gerry Cotten and the missing US$250 million they believe he stole from them,” reads the official excerpt for Trust No One: The Hunt for the Crypto King.

The Crypto King, aka Gerald “Gerry” Cotten, died in 2018, but his mysterious death is still a subject of controversy today. His death sparked online debates and string theories on Reddit and Telegram that are perpetrated by those who lost most of their life savings to this young techpreneur (over 76,000 customers, according to multiple reports).

Many believed that Cotten faked his own death to abscond with the funds himself and, after further investigations, it was also revealed that his past identity was muddier than we were initially led to believe.

So what exactly happened to Gerald Cotten?

He seemed like a nice guy

 
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Growing up in Belleville, a waterfront community between Toronto and Montreal, Cotten graduated from an honours programme at York University’s Schulich School of Business. He then founded a Canadian cryptocurrency exchange company called Quadriga fintech Solutions (QuadrigaCX) in 2013, which became a huge success during the initial cryptocurrency boom in 2016. His company was so popular that it actually helped legitimise bitcoin in Canada as its largest trading cryptocurrency firm.

As Vanity Fair put it, “Cotten was a computer nerd who had entered the right business at the right time and succeeded beyond his wildest dreams.”

However, his dramatic fall came when cryptocurrency prices crashed in 2018. When his customers tried to withdraw their funds from Quadriga, they were met with dead ends. Things didn’t help when he was reported dead not long after that.

It’s believed that Cotten owed around US$250 million to over 76,000 investors, but unfortunately this sum can only be accessed by Cotten, as he was the only one who had the passwords to the offline cold wallets. In 2019, Quadriga ceased operations and filed for bankruptcy.

He owned an expensive yacht, multiple houses – and an island

 

While he owes a quarter-million dollars today, Cotten once lived a lavish life during his peak. Vanity Fair reported that he owned a US$600,000 yacht named Gulliver in 2017 that boasted three cabins and a dining area for six.

When it came to property, he and his then-girlfriend Jennifer Robertson lived in a three-bedroom in the posh Fall River area, north of Halifax. Cotten also owned a home in British Columbia’s wine country, Kelowna, and a house in Calgary. If that’s not impressive enough, he also once rented 14 houses in Nova Scotia.