What's the real story behind The Hunt for the Crypto King?

Another day, another true crime documentary. Am I right, or am I right? Thankfully for all the true crime addicts out there (read: Team Cosmo), streaming giant Netflix seems to have an endless array of compelling documentaries for us to sink our teeth into. And next on our 'OMG have you watched...?' list is Trust No One: The Hunt for the Crypto King which premieres on 30 March.

Ahead of its release, we've taken a deep dive into the gripping crypto crime case that the documentary is based on, uncovering the real life people that are featured in the film and finding out what exactly happened to them.

So, with that in mind, here's everything you need to know about Netflix's Trust No One: The Hunt for the Crypto King...

What is the true story behind Trust No One: The Hunt for the Crypto King?

If, like us, you're not entirely clued up on all-things-crypto, then there's no reason to fear this very crypto-focussed film. In simple terms, the documovie is a case of lost internet money (aka crypto) and the search to find it. But, in less simple terms, here's a more in-depth debrief of what the show is about.

Cast your minds back to 2014, when Kim Kardashian and Kanye West got married, and when entrepreneur Gerry Cotten founded his fintech company Quadriga – which grew to become Canada's largest cryptocurrency exchange (a place where you can buy and sell crypto).

Within three years, the company was dealing with billions of dollars worth of crypto, with the industry booming and founder Cotten along with it, in part due to how his company differed to others doing much the same. In fact, Cotten made crypto easy for it's crypto owners by maintaining their digital wallets with private keys (fancy passwords). These private keys were made up of 64-character codes, which we're sure you'll agree ain't easy for the average person to remember, so crypto investors were understandably eager for Cotten's company to take care of handling that. According to Sheona McDonald however, who directed an earlier documentary on Cotten, the caveat with that is: "If you don’t own your crypto key, you don’t own your crypto."

what's the real story behind the hunt for the crypto king

Netflix

Fast forward to 2018 and Quadriga's customers found themselves facing that very dilemma when Cotten died unexpectedly – taking those precious private keys with him to the grave.

What happened to Trust No One: The Hunt for the Crypto King's Gerry Cotten?

In December 2018, Cotten and his wife travelled to India where they planned to fund an orphanage, reportedly telling Vanity Fair that Canadian dollars went much further there.

But, just a few days into their trip, Cotten was struck down with severe stomach pain – he'd suffered with Crohn’s disease for a number of years, but had kept this quiet and out of public knowledge. With his pain getting worse, Cotten visited a local hospital where doctors diagnosed him with traveller's diarrhea. However, subsequent blood tests revealed he'd developed septic shock, and within 24 hours he suffered three heart attacks, with the last one proving fatal. He died on 9 December, 2018.

It wasn't until more than a month after his death, on 14 January, that Cotten's Quadriga community was informed of his passing and by the end of that month, those who'd fuelled their finances into the company were beginning to panic.

"As soon as I saw that notice [on Quadriga's site], I knew the money was gone," said documentary maker McDonald, who had also been investing in the company. "They were suspending payments."

Here's where those passwords come into play – with Cotten dead, access to the millions of dollars worth of crypto his company looked after was essentially lost... forever.

Four years on, those who fuelled their money into the company have essentially been left high and dry, with some speculating that Cotten faked his death and made off with the money, or simply went into hiding after potentially losing his client's cash through shady dealings. Some investors have even gone so far as to request that Cotten's body is exhumed to prove his death, per New York Post.

Trust No One: The Hunt for the Crypto King is available to stream on Netflix from 30 March.

JiveDash