Exit Scam · Treats Media

Part I: The Lost Password

May 10, 2021·28 min·2 clips

Gerald Cotten, founder of Canada's largest Bitcoin exchange, died in India, leaving $215 million in customer funds inaccessible.

The story begins with a clean little mystery, maybe too clean. Gerald Cotton introduces himself as the founder of Quadriga CX, called Canada's largest Bitcoin exchange here, and then the narration turns to his sudden death. Jerry was only 30. That is the detail that makes the case feel compressed: young CEO, missing password, money nobody can reach. It sounds like a tech support problem until the scale lands. Thousands of Canadians are stuck outside funds described as something like 190 million dollars. The host understands why people outside Bitcoin circles paid attention. This had the shape of an ordinary mistake, just with absurd stakes. Then he brings it closer. For casual listeners, Jerry could be a strange headline or a warning about crypto. For Bitcoin people, it hits a nerve. The host puts himself in that camp without dressing it up. He owns crypto, checks Bitcoin constantly, cares too much, and was already making a podcast about it. That matters because curiosity does not stay casual for long. Lane Brown joins the chase. They talk for hours about Jerry, the passwords, and the missing money, until the story drags them into documents and interviews. Soon they are pulling court records, talking to Jerry's friends, and retracing his path through India. The neat password version starts to wobble. Each answer makes the story stranger, not clearer. The host does not pretend the first episode can solve it. He sets up an eight-episode search for who Jerry was and what happened to him.

As heard by us

A calm, methodical missing-money story where a single password carries outsized consequences.

Exit Scam begins with a blunt setup: Gerald Cotton, the founder of Quadriga CX, dies on a trip to India in 2018, and a missing password leaves thousands of Canadians cut off from their money.

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Why you'd press play

A missing password and a lot of money gone quiet.

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