Set against the backdrop of the tumultuous and sometimes nefarious world of cryptocurrency, Dead Man’s Switch is a feature-length documentary, a cautionary tale, about the short life & mysterious death of QuadrigaCX CEO, Gerald Cotten.
Using first person interviews, live action, and animation, this film lays out the benign and outrageous facts of the last five years of Gerry’s life and then re-explores those facts, with humor and intent, as we weave a story steeped in conjecture, suspicion, greed, and innuendo.
No one involved in this scandalous tale of a system with no oversight seems to agree on what exactly happened when $250M of investors’ cryptocurrency went missing in 2018 or where the responsibility for such a devastating loss lies. Everyone has a different story and different pieces of the puzzle.
Is this the satirical love story of a scammer who gets scammed and murdered? Or the story of an egotistical opportunist caught in the web of his own deceit? The tragic tale of a man with bad luck? Is it larger than that? Is this what happens when greed and technology meet a lack of regulation in a burgeoning, dark world that supports the habits of arms dealers, drug lords, and sex traffickers? Or simply when it all seems too good to be true, it probably is?
The truth, likely, lies somewhere between facts and suggestion, but the journey to find the truth is an exciting road of twists, turns and rabbit holes – inevitably leaving the viewer continually surprised and asking ‘How could this happen?’
