Gerald Cotten incorporated QuadrigaCX in British Columbia in 2013, at 25, and named himself its sole director. He co-founded the exchange with Michael Patryn, who was involved until 2016; after that, according to staff of the Ontario Securities Commission, Cotten ran the business alone and retained complete control over its bank accounts and its wallets. A contractor quoted in the OSC report put it as: "Gerry was the gatekeeper. Everything had to go through him."
Quadriga announced on 14 January 2019 that Cotten had died in India the previous month. The platform stopped operating and filed for creditor protection on 5 February 2019.
The OSC published its review on 14 April 2020 and concluded that the collapse "resulted from a fraud committed by Quadriga's co-founder and CEO Gerald Cotten", attributing roughly CAD 115 million of the shortfall to his trading against clients under aliases and CAD 28 million to undisclosed trading of client assets elsewhere. The report states that these are staff's findings, not findings of fact by an OSC hearing panel or a court, and that staff decided against an enforcement proceeding because Cotten was dead and the company bankrupt.