These five crypto figures vanished, died or fooled us all

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Zerebro developer Jeffy Yu has been recovered live astatine his parents’ location successful San Francisco, days aft faking his suicide connected a livestream that launched a expected posthumous memecoin past $100 million.

Yu’s lawsuit isn’t the archetypal clip crypto has blurred the enactment betwixt existent death, faked decease and thing successful between.

From missing founders to sealed caskets, the manufacture has a agelong past of exits that near down much questions than closure.

Here are 5 unsettling cases — real, staged oregon unresolved — that proceed to haunt the crypto world.

1. Jeffy Yu faked his death, past his crypto pumped

A clip of Yu broadcasting his “suicide” circulated connected May 4. The video showed him smoking a cigaret earlier pulling the trigger, past the camera dropped.

Hours later, a scheduled societal media station announced the posthumous motorboat of LLJEFFY, a memecoin described arsenic his “final creation piece.” The coin surged to astir $105 cardinal successful marketplace cap.

But Yu wasn’t dead. Blockchain wallets tied to him kept moving. A transcript of a missive — allegedly written by Yu — described the exit plan arsenic a effect to ongoing harassment and blackmail.

Reporters from The San Francisco Standard yet found Yu astatine his parents’ home. He refused to remark connected the termination stunt oregon whether helium profited from it.

In the satellite of memecoins, this benignant of spectacle isn’t new. In precocious 2024, Pump.fun’s livestream diagnostic triggered a question of stunts — termination threats, carnal maltreatment and different shocking acts — to pump token prices. The institution unopen it down and aboriginal relaunched a toned-down version.

2. A crypto whistleblower’s descent into paranoia and imaginable death

In February 2025, a suspected Chinese programmer who called themselves Hu Lezhi burned 500 Ether (ETH) (worth astir $1.3 cardinal astatine the time) and donated different 1,950 ETH (over $5 million) to assorted groups similar WikiLeaks and the Ethereum Foundation.

All of it came with onchain messages alleging that a hedge money called WizardQuant (aka Kuande Investment) was utilizing “brain-computer weapons” to power its employees — including Hu.

The messages work similar sci-fi horror. Hu claimed he’d been a mind-control trial taxable since puerility and warned of a aboriginal wherever humans were thing much than “puppets oregon implicit slaves to the integer machine.”

In 1 of his past messages, Hu said they would “leave the world” if they reached the last signifier of becoming a “complete enslaved to the integer machine.” Some translated the bid of messages arsenic an onchain termination note.

To date, they haven’t re-emerged. And dissimilar Yu, Hu’s wallet hasn’t moved.

3. The crypto whiz and the cryptic tweet earlier his death

On Oct. 28, 2022, DeFi developer Nikolai Mushegian posted a chilling tweet: “CIA and Mossad and pedo elite are moving immoderate benignant of enactment trafficking entrapment blackmail ring… they are going to torture maine to death.”

By the adjacent morning, helium was recovered face-down successful the surf adjacent his formation location successful Puerto Rico.

Mushegian wasn’t a random crypto kid. He was an aboriginal developer astatine MakerDAO and a cardinal designer of the stablecoin ecosystem.

He was besides progressively paranoid — or, depending connected who you ask, progressively aware. Critics dismissed the tweet arsenic a intelligence wellness crisis, but others weren’t truthful speedy to look away.

The timing of his decease sparked a question of theories: assassination, targeted silencing oregon adjacent MKUltra-style caput control.

Officially, it was ruled an accidental drowning.

4. Crypto investors can’t judge QuadrigaCX founder’s death

In December 2018, Gerald Cotten, the 30-year-old laminitis of Canadian crypto speech QuadrigaCX, reportedly died successful India from Crohn’s disease.

But determination was 1 monolithic problem: He was the lone idiosyncratic with entree to $190 cardinal successful crypto.

As quality of his decease spread, truthful did the questions. There was nary nationalist autopsy, his decease certificate misspelled his sanction (spelling Cotten arsenic Cottan), the casket was sealed, and a increasing service of investors wanted his assemblage exhumed for DNA testing.

Quadriga officially declared bankruptcy successful 2019. Thousands of clients were locked retired of their funds. Eventually, investigators discovered the acold wallets were empty, prompting auditor EY to statesman betterment efforts.

Some suspected Cotten had tally a Ponzi strategy for years and utilized his decease arsenic the eventual flight plan. The rumors person not been confirmed, but the authoritative communicative remains that helium died a tragic death, arsenic confirmed by Indian authorities.

5. Reports of Cryptoqueen’s decease are greatly exaggerated

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

Cotten near nary access. Ignatova near nary trace.

Since then, rumors person swirled. Some accidental that she underwent integrative country and lives nether a caller individuality oregon that she’s being protected by the Bulgarian mafia.

A Bulgarian investigative outlet claims Ignatova was allegedly murdered successful November 2018 connected a yacht successful the Ionian Sea and that her assemblage was dismembered and dumped overboard nether the orders of Bulgarian transgression brag Christophoros Amanatidis to screen his ties to OneCoin.

More recently, German officials reportedly assumed that Ignatova is successful a South African suburb surviving with backstage security.

Ignatova has been connected the US FBI’s 10 Most Wanted database since 2022.