These five crypto figures vanished, died or fooled us all

Zerebro developer Jeffy Yu has been discovered alive at his dad and mom’ dwelling in San Francisco, days after faking his suicide on a livestream that launched a supposed posthumous memecoin previous $100 million.

Yu’s case isn’t the primary time crypto has blurred the road between actual dying, faked dying and one thing in between. 

From lacking founders to sealed caskets, the trade has an extended historical past of exits that left behind extra questions than closure.

Listed here are 5 unsettling circumstances — actual, staged or unresolved — that proceed to hang-out the crypto world.

1. Jeffy Yu faked his dying, then his crypto pumped

A clip of Yu broadcasting his “suicide” circulated on Might 4. The video confirmed him smoking a cigarette earlier than pulling the set off, then the digital camera dropped.

Hours later, a scheduled social media put up introduced the posthumous launch of LLJEFFY, a memecoin described as his “remaining artwork piece.” The coin surged to just about $105 million in market cap.

However Yu wasn’t useless. Blockchain wallets tied to him stored shifting. A replica of a letter — allegedly written by Yu — described the exit design as a response to ongoing harassment and blackmail.

Reporters from The San Francisco Normal finally found Yu at his parents’ home. He refused to touch upon the suicide stunt or whether or not he profited from it.

On the earth of memecoins, this type of spectacle isn’t new. In late 2024, Pump.enjoyable’s livestream characteristic triggered a wave of stunts — suicide threats, animal abuse and different stunning acts — to pump token costs. The corporate shut it down and later relaunched a toned-down model.

2. A crypto whistleblower’s descent into paranoia and potential dying

In February 2025, a suspected Chinese language programmer who referred to as themselves Hu Lezhi burned 500 Ether (ETH) (price round $1.3 million on the time) and donated one other 1,950 ETH (over $5 million) to numerous teams like WikiLeaks and the Ethereum Basis. 

All of it got here with onchain messages alleging {that a} hedge fund referred to as WizardQuant (aka Kuande Funding) was utilizing “brain-computer weapons” to regulate its staff — together with Hu.

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The messages learn like sci-fi horror. Hu claimed he’d been a mind-control take a look at topic since childhood and warned of a future the place people have been nothing greater than “puppets or full slaves to the digital machine.”

In one among his final messages, Hu mentioned they might “go away the world” in the event that they reached the ultimate stage of changing into a “full slave to the digital machine.” Some translated the collection of messages as an onchain suicide note.

Thus far, they haven’t re-emerged. And in contrast to Yu, Hu’s pockets hasn’t moved.

3. The crypto whiz and the cryptic tweet earlier than his dying

On Oct. 28, 2022, DeFi developer Nikolai Mushegian posted a chilling tweet: “CIA and Mossad and pedo elite are operating some type of intercourse trafficking entrapment blackmail ring… they will torture me to dying.”

By the subsequent morning, he was discovered face-down within the surf close to his seashore home in Puerto Rico.

Mushegian wasn’t a random crypto child. He was an early developer at MakerDAO and a key architect of the stablecoin ecosystem. 

He was additionally more and more paranoid — or, relying on who you ask, more and more conscious. Critics dismissed the tweet as a psychological well being disaster, however others weren’t so fast to look away.

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The timing of his dying sparked a wave of theories: assassination, focused silencing and even MKUltra-style thoughts management.

Formally, it was dominated an unintended drowning.

4. Crypto buyers can’t consider QuadrigaCX founder’s dying

In December 2018, Gerald Cotten, the 30-year-old founding father of Canadian crypto trade QuadrigaCX, reportedly died in India from Crohn’s illness. 

However there was one huge downside: He was the one particular person with entry to $190 million in crypto.

As information of his dying unfold, so did the questions. There was no public post-mortem, his dying certificates misspelled his title (spelling Cotten as Cottan), the casket was sealed, and a rising military of buyers wished his physique exhumed for DNA testing.

Quadriga formally declared chapter in 2019. Hundreds of purchasers have been locked out of their funds. Finally, investigators found the chilly wallets have been empty, prompting auditor EY to begin recovery efforts.

Some suspected Cotten had run a Ponzi scheme for years and used his dying as the last word escape plan. The rumors haven’t been confirmed, however the official story stays that he died a tragic dying, as confirmed by Indian authorities. 

5. Reviews of Cryptoqueen’s dying are enormously exaggerated

Self-styled “Cryptoqueen” Ruja Ignatova, co-founder of the $4-billion OneCoin rip-off, hasn’t been seen since she boarded a Ryanair flight from Sofia to Athens in October 2017.

Cotten left no entry. Ignatova left no hint.

Since then, rumors have swirled. Some say that she underwent cosmetic surgery and lives below a brand new id or that she’s being protected by the Bulgarian mafia. 

A Bulgarian investigative outlet claims Ignatova was allegedly murdered in November 2018 on a yacht within the Ionian Sea and that her physique was dismembered and dumped overboard below the orders of Bulgarian crime boss Christophoros Amanatidis to cowl his ties to OneCoin.

Extra lately, German officers reportedly assumed that Ignatova is in a South African suburb residing with private security.

Ignatova has been on the US FBI’s 10 Most Wanted list since 2022.

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