How India's credibility is at stake in the crypto world?
Much of the bitcoin, cryptocurrency frenzy had fizzled out in 2018, but many investors or so-called early adopters still hold hope in the phenomenon dubbed as the currency of the digital age. Now there is a major twist in the cryptocurrency tale and all that happened very close to us, read on to know.
In 2019, the cryptocurrency world is grabbing the headlines, but for a wrong reason – the death of a cryptocurrency exchange, QuadrigaCX's CEO, Gerald Cotton, who died here in India. The dead guy is said to hold password to a huge cache of digital currencies, which his staff now says they have no access to. The exchange with around 1,15,000 users, owes roughly US$190 million in cryptocurrency and fiat to its users.
The Canada-based cryptocurrency exchange QuadrigaCX's CEO, Gerald Cotton, aged 30 years, died of a cardiac arrest at Fortis Escorts hospital in Jaipur. He was admitted to the hospital on December 8, 2018 in a critical condition with pre-existing Crohn’s disease.
With the sudden death of its CEO, QuadrigaCX is facing accusations that the CEO's death is fake and the company is scamming its customers. The exchange allowed users to buy and trade bitcoins for real-world currencies as well as allowed trade among different types of cryptocurrencies. The company was facing legal issues with its customers complaining that they were unable to access the currencies held in their wallet.
Surprisingly, the name of India is being thrown around in international news reports as among the world's top destinations where one can easily manage to get an official death certificate by faking death. Investigative journalists have earlier proven that getting a fake death certificate is quite possible in a small city like Jaipur. No coverage of Cotton's dead by the Indian media is also leading many to believe that this is a scam.
With this development, along with the crypto world, the integrity of the Indian healthcare sector, as well as government agencies, is being questioned internationally.