TIL of Tong Zou, who lost $500,000 when the Co-Founder of the exchange he used died having the sole the access to the password of his customers' funds.

Tong Zou, wanting to avoid bank commissions, bought Bitcoin and put all his money into an exchange called "Quadriga" before selling it. At this time Quadriga was Canada's largest cryptocurrency exchange.

However, the funds didn't arrive in his bank account.

He goes on to say that he even did some research on Reddit:

"I did some research on Reddit. They said: 'Oh it's going to take a while but you always get your money. It's not a scam'."

And that:

"I was thinking of alternative ways to do it where I could save myself some money"

But then he learned that the Co-Founder of the exchange had passed, and that he was the only one with access to the passwords to his clients' money.

His wife confirmed it, saying that:

"He held sole responsibility for handling the funds and coins" and no other members of the team could access the stored funds."

Also saying she didn't have the password to his laptop.

After the fact, it also emerged that the Co-Founder of the exchange Cotten had been operating a Ponzi scheme before as well.

They even made a Netflix documentary about the story.

An article about this case:

https://news.sky.com/story/man-lost-500-000-life-savings-in-crypto-exchange-scam-after-trader-died-with-password-to-funds-12577397