Well, given the inept, scammy natures of many/most cryptocurrency-related businesses, I’d say that it’s totally… well, not reasonable, but plausible. (I mean, the entire history of Mt Gox was pretty outrageous, for example, especially considering it had a billion dollars, supposedly, worth of coins going through it.) If it’s true that the CEO destroyed backup access to enact this plan, the fact that he could do it at all shows things weren’t all that different than if there was no contingency plan.
That is, if the CEO did run off with the money, it was possible only because the whole 190 million dollar operation was an absurd, poorly-run scam to begin with.
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What do you mean the unliscened and unregulated hotel I was driven to by the unliscened and unregulated taxi service won’t accept my unliscenced and unregulated currency!?
When Peter Thiel opens his island dystopia we finally won’t have to deal with all this red tape!
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I’m getting Leona Helmsley vibes here:
He […] outlined the distribution of his assets, including an airplane, property in British Columbia and Nova Scotia, and two pet chihuahuas named Nitro and Gully, along with $100,000 for their care.
He left $100,000 to his dogs?
The article also brings up the obvious point:
Operators of other Canadian cryptocurrency exchanges called it highly unusual for a single executive to be the only one with access to the company’s funds. That would have made Mr. Cotten - who was well known in the cryptocurrency community and an avid traveller - vulnerable to being kidnapped or extorted, said Michael Gokturk, CEO of Vancouver-based Einstein Exchange. “It’s the equivalent of walking around with millions of dollars in cash on you at all times,” Mr. Gokturk said.
He was a walking disaster, dead or alive.
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I heard a report that he died helping out at an orphanage or similar in India. Um, a nice humanitarian gesture, but pretty strange thing for the CEO of a crypto-exchange to doing without a human backup at home.
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Crypto CEO dies with the password to unlock $200+ million of customers mullah, can’t return the funds …
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“That’s the kind of thing an idiot would have on his luggage!”
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I think I know a guy who can help get the password back.
Uh, maybe make that a “fish” who can help get that password back.
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I wonder about this. If you burned 20% of a real currency, we’d expect deflation, because somehow the remaining 80% is supposed to still represent the value of the goods it could previously buy. But does it necessarily follow that the same should hold true for crypto?
Crypto value seems pretty divorced from the real-world market of goods. If 20% of BitCoin is burned up, or, more specifically, stuck in wallets and simply not moving anywhere, why does this make the rest of it more valuable? In practical terms, why would anyone pay more USD for BitCoin at the exchanges? If anything, wouldn’t the prospect of losing the money cause you to value it less?
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This is one of those movies I just know I’m going to end up watching someday even though every review screams NOOOO DON’T DO IT
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It’s the same reason that people store their valuables in banks instead of in their mattress. In this case, the valuables are the crypto keys. You have to think about where the keys are less likely to be stolen or lost or destroyed: in your desk (or desktop computer) or in a “bank”. If you have a significant amount of money at risk, it isn’t an easy trade off, considering all the possible vulnerabilities: theft, fire, flood, memory loss, hackers, malware, etc. Remember the guy who was frantically searching the garbage dump for a hard drive that contained his crypto keys?
The mistake, of course, is in assuming that some young company selling cryptocurrency wallets online is as mature and secure as a bank. There is lots of history, law, precedent, standard practices, insurance, government protection, etc, that banks have that crypto wallet companies do not.
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Theranos was up to 10 billion, their tech was imaginary too.
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If one assumes that the ‘true value’ of cryptocurrency today is a speculative bubble rather than an expression of their use as a medium of exchange then I don’t see any reason why their destruction would be ‘deflationary’. They aren’t actually currencies, so why would they act like currencies?
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It gives a whole new meaning to the term ‘exit strategy’.
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Sooo many things don’t pass the sniff test. This busy startup CEO has time to personally run off to India (without his wife!) and get hands-on involved in an orphanage? Just reality, it’s most often the rich founder’s wife who is more involved in such things, not the guy going off without her. Crohn’s is bad, but it’s chronic and not suddenly fatal. One guy is the only guy with a password that’s worth $100mil and he goes off to India with no security? He has a chronic medical condition and doesn’t plan anything related to that? And then of course, we know that BTC is plagued with exit scams, in addition to Ponzi schemes and mafia. How much does it cost to get a faked death certificate in India? A lot less than $100mil!
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And, to some extent, Goldeneye.
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It’s not that bad and has its moments…
But it is in the spot where it is bad enough that I’m annoyed by it wasting a big budget on telling a story with big potential very poorly; yet isn’t bad enough to be able to enjoy the crappieness.
Anyway, here is the good bit:
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and a portable cassette player is a, oh, never mind.
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they really should have some agency with public accountability that protects them as consumers.
oh well.
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Go right ahead and call me Billy Balloon Buster, but something tells me those particular interests, taken together, will generate a greater drive to unlock accounts because $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.
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Like whatshisname, the Enron guy?
Who died at exactly the most convenient time for his estate not to have to pay the money he owed?
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