Why So Serious?

Troubled crypto exchange QuadrigaCX, whose customers have been unable to withdraw funds for months, has been inaccessible for several hours.

The Canadian company, which has faced a prolonged banking fight and said its CEO and founder died last month, blamed a system upgrade for the Monday outage. It was not immediately clear when the exchange would go back online.

The company did not post any updates about the situation to its Twitter or Reddit pages, though users of both platforms complained about issues accessing the platform throughout the day.

Moreover, the status message on the website appears to be fluid. A previous message timestamped 21:07 UTC on Jan. 28 explains that “an upgrade is being performed on QuadrigaCX and we should be back online shortly,” alongside an apology “for any inconvenience.”

However, a later message simply states that the site is down for maintenance:

Ongoing issues
Earlier this month, QuadrigaCX said on social media and through emails sent to customers that it was making progress toward returning their money, after resolving a legal fight with the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC), which previously froze funds held by the exchange’s payment processor.

However, messages on Reddit Monday indicate that customers continue to have issues withdrawing their funds.

An email sent by interim CEO Aaron Matthews on January 15 said the exchange would work to return customer funds “within two weeks” – a period that ends tomorrow.

However, Jose Reyes, owner and managing director of Billerfy, the payment processor working to endorse the bank drafts on Quadriga’s behalf, said at the time he did not have a firm timeline on when funds might be returned.

“[N]o banks have the appetite to take the drafts so we are looking around for crypto-friendly banks,” he told CoinDesk then. As such, he could not commit to the two-week timeframe laid out by Matthews.

The company was expected to hold a shareholders’ meeting on Friday to elect new officers, following a petition to the Supreme Court of British Columbia filed by Jennifer Robertson, identified as the widow of QuadrigaCX founder Gerald Cotten and the executor of his estate.

The petition claimed Cotten’s death left no officers with the company. However, it is not clear if the meeting took place and, if so, what the results were.

Requests for comment to QuadrigaCX and Reyes were not immediately returned