Before Quadriga: How shady ventures in Gerald Cotten’s youth led to the creation of his ill-fated cryptocurrency exchange

By Joe Castaldo and Alexandra Posadzki

In the summer of 2003, Gerald Cotten joined a web forum that exposed him to a roiling world of shadowy digital currencies and outright financial scams. Mr. Cotten, who had just finished ninth grade at a high school in sleepy Belleville, Ont., tapped in the username “sceptre” and revealed nothing else about himself.

He soon became enthralled with the bustling site, known as TalkGold, where fly-by-night promoters and gullible investors could connect. Mr. Cotten made nearly 2,000 posts over the next decade. Hidden behind fake names and software to obscure his location, he experimented with shady ventures of his own and pushed them on the forum.

Mr. Cotten’s early online activities, which are previously unreported, proved to be an education of sorts. He apparently launched several schemes – and occasionally ran into trouble. “I sincerely ask that everyone remain calm,” reads a post from his sceptre account in 2004, when he was just 15, in what looks like a scramble to return money to at least 235 investors.

That education also gave Mr. Cotten the wile and the nerve he needed for the business he eventually co-founded and operated as an adult: QuadrigaCX. Launched in late 2013, it became Canada’s largest cryptocurrency exchange.

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Published by the Globe and Mail.