$100 Million Short: QuadrigaCX Audit Can't Account for 26K Missing Bitcoin

Aside from $400,000 worth of bitcoin that was accidentally sent to the cold wallets in early February, they are empty, meaning $100 million of the cryptocurrency is still missing.

While certain details in the report were already public, such as EY's progress getting third-party payment processors to transfer fiat holdings back to Quadriga, until now the audit firm had steadfastly refused to provide much information about its search for the exchange's missing cryptocurrencies.

To recap, Quadriga announced at the end of January that it owed its customers nearly $200 million in both cryptocurrencies and fiat, with crypto making up the bulk at around $137 million.

Now, for the first time, EY has officially identified six bitcoin cold wallet addresses that it says Quadriga used.

"The Monitor has made inquiries of the Applicants as to the reason for the lack of cryptocurrency reserves in the Identified Bitcoin Cold Wallets since April 2018. To date, the Applicants have been unable to identify a reason why Quadriga may have stopped using the Identified Bitcoin Cold Wallets for deposits in April 2018 the Monitor and Management will continue to review the Quadriga database to obtain further information."

Cold wallets aside, some $21,000 CAD have been deposited in the form of various cryptocurrencies to Quadriga's hot, or, online, wallets since its initial filing on Jan. 31.

EY is working with Quadriga to determine who has been depositing funds to the exchange's hot wallets, and a recommendation as to what to do about the situation will be presented later.

At least some of these exchanges confirmed that Cotten or Quadriga held accounts, and one has transferred a "Minimal" amount of cryptocurrency to EY. The report did not specify which exchanges these were.

Cotten appears to have set up an account with Amazon Web Services to store Quadriga data on, as did Jose Reyes, the owner and operator of two of the payment processors Quadriga used.

"The Monitor believes it is imperative that a copy of the Quadriga Platform Data is backed up and secured with the Monitor as soon as possible. The Platform Data will assist the Monitor's ongoing investigation into Quadriga's business, affairs and potential assets that may be recoverable for the benefit of the Applicants' stakeholders," the report said.