FBI Joins Fray As QuadrigaCX’s Missing Crypto Case Winds On

Might there still be some (crypto) money left in Quadriga’s (crypto) till?

The news early in the week may have centered on the volatility of bitcoin and brethren, where mid-single digit losses were, at this writing, reversed a bit by mid-single digit gains. But beyond the vagaries of price, in industry news relayed by Yahoo! Finance, a report has debuted from ZeroNonCense that QuadrigaCX, the digital exchange operating out of Canada, had stored what is being termed a “significant quantity” of Ethereum with other sites – and did so prior to the death of Quadriga Founder Gerry Cotton.

Cotton, as widely reported, died in December with sole access to the firm’s cold storage wallet, from which as much as $136 million is said to be missing. The company is in the crosshairs of several lawsuits tied to the allegedly mislaid funds.

“If ZeroNonCense’s claims are true, the funds could allow QuadrigaCX to regain solvency and resume operations,” noted the site. As per the report, executives from exchanges, including Kraken CEO Jesse Powell and MyCrypto CEO Taylor Monahan have stated that Quadriga stored 650,000 Ethereum across a number of those exchanges.

Separately, on Tuesday, Fortune reported that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is investigating Quadriga.

Kraken’s Powell – which Fortune cited as the source of the information the FBI (and also the Royal Canadian Mounted Police) is investigating – seemed to cast doubt that Quadriga had actually placed the millions upon millions of dollars in cold storage. As reported, transactions on the blockchain seem to point to Quadriga’s moving assets to “hot wallets” tied to another exchange.

Kraken, for its part, has offered $100,000 as a reward for “tips” that lead to the recovery of those funds. Powell said no funds were held at Kraken. “Hopefully, others are looking. (It) could be (that) accounts were created under different names, (and therefore) might take some real digging to find,” he said.