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Man who lost $422K in QuadrigaCX disaster: 'I was angry and depressed'

source-logo  chepicap.com 20 February 2019 08:10, UTC

Tong Zou, the 30-year-old Canadian resident and former BitTorrent and Walmart software engineer lost all of his life savings, a total of $422,000, during the QuadrigaCX disaster. He was angry and depressed at first, but has realized that having friends and family is more important than money.

In an interview with The Star, the Vancouver resident said that it is devastating when you lose that kind of money, adding that despite this massive financial loss, he still believes in the future of cryptocurrencies.

'But this is a bad mark on the Canadian crypto industry', Zou said.

The QuadrigaCX collapse, has affected over 115,000 cryptocurrency traders, with Zou being one of them. However, Zou wasn't your typical cryptocurrency trader.

The 30-year-old software engineer had been working in California for the last seven years, when he decided to move back to Canada, settle down, and purchase an apartment. Due to high conversion rates and fees involved in transferring funds to Canada, Zou opted to convert his funds into crypto, deposited to QuadrigaCX, converted it to Canadian dollars, and filed a withdrawal request in October 2018.

'I wasn’t using it for trading. I just wanted to move my money over to my Canadian bank account', Zou said.

Read more: QuadrigaCX: CEO's widow begins liquidating assets

Zou further explained that he and some of his friends manged to gather up some healthy profits in 2017, when the cryptocurrency markets were booming.

'But we lost it all in 2018 because of the crypto crash. I know a few people who got out at the right time, but that wasn’t me.'

'If there’s any lesson I learned, it’s to not to be too greedy', Zou said. 'And that’s what caused me to be in this situation. I saw the 10-per-cent premium. I got tempted by it.'

Contemplating on the future, Zou said that he is convinced that he will recover from his losses, 'though it could take a long time.'

'I was angry and depressed when it first happened, but over time I was talking to my friends and family to get some sense of comfort and support.'

'The way I got over it is by thinking about what’s important in my life — what makes me happy. Having enough money to make me comfortable — that’s all good. But having friends, family and being around the people that you care about, I think that’s more important than money.'

Read more: QuadrigaCX ‘inadvertently’ sent BTC to dead CEO’s cold wallet: EY report

Here you can see Zou sharing his current feelings on the QuadrigaCX story on Twitter:

https://t.co/1L413M8VBj my current feelings on the #QuadrigaCX situation

— Tong Zou (@gofishus) February 16, 2019
chepicap.com