Talk:Quadriga (company)

Content in article history

Hi! One of the Wiki Ed students created a draft article for their product, but never actually completed it from what I can see. I moved it to the mainspace and redirected it to this article, but you can access the article history here, if anyone is interested in merging this content to this article or vice-versa. Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:36, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

PROD

Removing tag. This page should have deleted when it was created in 2016 for lack of notability but it got some mainstream coverage this year in Global News and The Globe and Mail.[1][2][3] Morgan Ginsberg (talk) 22:59, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

No obituaries...

I was surprised that there don't seem to have been any obituaries. Geo Swan (talk) 22:40, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Call for discussion

In this edit Stephen removed a non-free image, with the edit summary "No need to reduce a copyrighted photo, as it is viewable via multiple references".

In my opinion while it is okay to use edit summaries as the sole explanation for simple and non-controversial edits, it is a mistake to rely solely on edit summaries for complicated or controversial edits. In my long experience here the practice of relying solely on an edit summary for a complicated or controversial edit is the most common trigger for edit-wars. The practice often triggers an emotional response, that triggers the contributors to respond in kind, with a reply in their own edit summary, when the revert they edit in question. Instant edit war. Big problem.

Also bad is that "discussions", that take place as multiple contributors revert one another, with angry or dismissive edit summaries, often only make sense when one steps through the edits, one at a time, because the context of what was changed is required. This is an extremely annoying waste of time for uninvolved third parties. Even then it can be impossible for uninvolved third parties to figure out what all the fuss is about. Even the involved parties can't always figure out what all the fuss was about, if they return to the article after a few weeks or months.

And, really, uninvolved third parties should be able to count on finding all important discussions of editorial issues on an article's talk page. Should we really expect uninvolved third parties to realize they should ALSO look at the edit summaries?

Stephen, are you challenging whether the image has a valid non-free use rationale? If so, could you say so here?

The surface meaning of your edit summary? You seem to be saying that we should only use non-free images when they are no longer available anywhere. I have never seen anyone make that argument before, and it frankly doesn't make sense to me. Are you only going to make this argument for non-free images? If we applied it to all images then the only images we would be using would be those made by WMF contributors.

Many of the RS commentators on this loss of keys have expressed or implied shock at the apparent casualness and lack of foresight on the part of the late CEO Gerald Cotten. When commentators saw this image, and a related image, I thought their comments showed they regarded the image as visually showing the casualness and lack of professionalism with which Cotten managed $250 million.

I think that justifies using this non-free image in this article. Geo Swan (talk) 23:07, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose as a (talk page watcher) i would note here that the NFU is not satisfied. I understand the justification for trying to add it here, but even the WP:NFC#CS is not met here. Unless the omission of this image is highly detrimental to the subject, copyrighted images should not be added.--DBigXrayᗙ 12:10, 8 February 2019 (UTC)
  • You linked to WP:NFC#CS "...where the item is itself the subject of sourced commentary in the article, or..."

Well, didn't you remove some of the sourced commentary from the body of the article? Forgive me for explaining a North American colloquialism to you. The term "cooking the books" refers to the act of preparing / maintaining fraudulent accounting records, in order to cheat investors, or cheat the tax man. Given that, now that he is dead, commentators are expressing concerns that Cotten's accounting of the funds he controlled on behalf of his clients was, at best, minimal and deeply inadequate, with some commentators asking whether he hadn't been running a ponzi scheme, this pun is not just slightly amusing, it is highly relevant.

WP:NFC#CS advises that contributors bear in mind due weight and balance, which is why I only quoted from one of the multiple RS that re-used the image, and commented on the image of the body of their articles.

You voiced a concern of WP:OVERCITE. The multiple references substantiate that the image was widely republished, and directly commented upon. Geo Swan (talk) 15:55, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

• Thank you. I am aware of the phrase.
• there is no evidence so far that he cooked the books. A recently died person still falls under WP:BLP (WP:RECENTLYDIED) so we have to be careful.
• There are half dozen citations. You can keep them on the talk page. If you are not selecting the best 1 or 2, and remove the rest then I will be forced to fix the OVERCITE myself. --DBigXrayᗙ 17:05, 8 February 2019 (UTC)
  • So, how, exactly, do you think BLP requires barring coverage of the widespread speculation about Cotten? WP:BLP#Tone says BLPs "avoid both understatement and overstatement". CBC News is a serious, responsible news organization. I used a reference to an interview they conducted with Takara Small, a serious business journalist, from the Globe and Mail a rival highly respected news organization.

    I could have quoted the comment early in the interview, where she said, "...but I think you know this is like a lifetime movie. It has all the aspects of a fictional movie that you would watch on TV and say okay this is not real..." However, because I am trying to comply with #Tone I quote "...But in this situation, I feel personally unlikely that there's some conspiracy theory out there where he's living the high life on like a deserted island..." If the conspiracy theories were only being talked about on reddit, and other sites that are not RS, or if only one or two legitimate RS mentioned them, I think you could argue that our article shouldn't mention them.

    The opinion that Cotten should have foreseen the possibility that other people might need to access the keys is not a fringe opinion. No one, not even his widow, is defending his failure to do so. I suggest BLP does not bar coverage of this. And since practically every legitimate RS that has written about this case either hints at impropriety, or explicitly discusses impropriety, isn't it unbalanced and irresponsible for this article to censor that coverage? Geo Swan (talk) 20:20, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

• Do you realize You have added half dozen links in the article as ref for this ?. I am sure there are at least 2 dozen refs more on this. Now should we add all these 30 citations ? I encourage you to kindly read the page WP:OVERCITE again, if you are not getting this. --DBigXrayᗙ 20:47, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

Looking at their editing history I doubt they will bother to correct this. More likely it seems they will try and turn this around and argue that you have misunderstood the policy and since they have been here longer know it better than you do. At least there hasn't been any forum shopping attempts yet.69.156.91.2 (talk) 18:18, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the kind comments. I have now removed these refs and moved to talk page.

References

Overcite at kitchen stove

Hi User:Geo Swan, can you please review and fix the WP:OVERCITE problem at the line which talks about the kitchen stove. Choose one ref and remove the rest. the page is soon going to be on the Mainpage, so such issues should not be there. I was tempted to do it myself, but it would be better if you select the best and cull the rest. thanks. --DBigXrayᗙ 12:14, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

Best article I've seen

The Globe and Mail had an outstanding article 3 days ago, sorry I missed it then

• Castaldo, Joe; Posadzki, Alexandra; Jessica, Leeder; Jones, Lindsay (8 February 2019). "Crypto chaos: From Vancouver to Halifax, tracing the mystery of Quadriga's missing millions". Globe and Mail. Archived from the original on 8 February 2019. Retrieved 12 February 2019.

Parking it here for now. We're close on most things, but I think a complete rewrite is required. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 03:17, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Gerald Cotten

There's a few notes not relevant to the company, that are about the founder. Should these be made into a new article?

Bankster666 (talk) 03:44, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

The real story finally comes out

I've put the following in the lede. It will entail a complete rewrite of the article.

Quadriga likely never invested the funds entrusted to it, according to Chainalysis a cryptocurrency tracking firm. Either the funds were never received or quickly went missing. "What Quadriga really did with the money that customers gave it to buy Bitcoin remains a mystery," according to Chainalysis.

References

My interpretation of the situation is that Quadriga had 3 things happen to it, probably some of all three.

1. It never actually received the funds (from its payment processors)
2. If it did receive the funds, they just disappeared right away without being invested
3. If the funds were actually invested, they were stolen sooner or later

(that's about the only three things that can happen to missing funds excluding explanations like "the Martians took it")

The mainstream press has seemed to avoid this fairly obvious conclusion, or at least saying it directly, but Chainalysis finally said it. I guess there are 2 reasons the press has avoided saying this. 1) It looks really close to saying "Quadriga and Cotten were just out-and-out crooks" and the press always avoids saying this when there are no arrests or indictments. 2) the story of the keys being lost because of Cotten's death is just too compelling - it's real urban legend type stuff - too good to be true after a bit of examination.

In short I'd like somebody to look at this closely. @David Gerard, MER-C, and TonyBallioni: Sooner or later we need to rewrite this article. I'll start in about 5 days if I don't hear any objections. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 18:14, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

Probably by then the sources will have hit the mainstream press! This is where we're hit with Wikipedia lag ... - David Gerard (talk) 11:16, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

• We have to follow what RS say, even if we are privately skeptical. However, even if most or all mainstream RS agree one of the three scenarios you suggested above, our coverage of the generally accepted scenario should still stop short of describing it as an unqualified fact. Rather, it should be covered as the conclusions of specific RS who explicitly stated that conclusion.

• In your third scenario did you mean to include the scenario where Cotten had secured the funds in the cold wallets, as he promised his investors, but

(3a) prior to the official opening of the cold wallets nefarious parties surreptitiously emptied them, letting the deceased Cotten take the blame.

(3b) the trusted parties charged with finding and opening the cold wallets realized they could steal the funds, letting the deceased Cotten take the blame.

Inserting scenario 3a or 3b into article space would require RS that say so. However, even without RS, caution should be exercised to not state the actual RS conclusions as unqualified fact. Geo Swan (talk) 18:50, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

excellent source

Read Vanity Fair today [4]. Large source with plenty of content for this article, and a clear WP:RS. The expose should also be sufficient to demonstrate notability of Cotten as well. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 09:18, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

The VF article looks good on Quadriga - nothing really new, but it's all in one place and checked over - David Gerard (talk) 17:24, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

move

@Ladislav Mecir: I moved the content [5] that you deleted on the bitcoin page here. If you see more content on this subject, please put it here, this article is quite small. Thanks! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 15:48, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

Ontario Securities Commission Report

The OSC issued a report on QuadrigaCX, which includes a video explaining exactly how the money was lost. Here: https://www.osc.gov.on.ca/quadrigacxreport/ Kimera 757 (talk) 23:01, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes, somebody should take the time and add this material. It is actually is quite a bit simpler than what we have now - essentially Cotten just took the money and lost most of it trading against his customers. Sorry, I just don't have the time right now. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 00:19, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Confessions of a Bitcoin Widow: How a Dream Life Turned into a Nightmare

Some quality, citable information available at Confessions of a Bitcoin Widow: How a Dream Life Turned into a Nightmare.

Jeffrey Walton (talk) 17:03, 30 July 2022 (UTC)