With cryptocurrency exchanges collapsing, crypto CEOs either getting arrested or on the run, and prices all over the place, the cryptocurrency sector seems to be running into quite a few hitches, the newest one being the mysterious deaths of crypto billionaires.
Indeed, over a span of less than a month, four crypto billionaires have passed away under suspicious circumstances, starting with Nikolai Mushegian in early October, as pointed out in a Kalkine TV video shared by the Twitter influencer Wall Street Silver on January 9.
MakerDAO founder
As it happens, Mushegian, who is a co-founder of the crypto lending platform MakerDAO and a key architect of the stablecoin concept, was discovered dead on a beach in San Juan, Puerto Rico, just hours after he tweeted that intelligence agencies were planning to murder him, and calling his former girlfriend a spy on October 28.
Although the police did not consider his death a homicide at present, and the area where his body was discovered is notorious for riptides, Mushegian was found fully clothed, and his wallet was still on him, according to the sources cited by The New York Post, adding more fire to conspiracy theories.
Crypto broker
Then, on November 22, the man who was in the middle of Spain’s biggest probe into cryptocurrency fraud, broker Javier Bosca, was found dead in an apparent suicide by jumping from the fifth floor of a hotel in the Spanish resort town of Estepona.
Interestingly, Biosca’s death occurred only three weeks after him being released on €1 million bail, and he was also being brought into connection with dangerous Russian and Romanian mobsters based in Andalusia, who were among the investors affected by the alleged Ponzi scheme.
Amber Group founder
Only one day after the discovery of Biosca’s body, co-founder of crypto company Amber Group and former employee at finance giants Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Tiantian Kullander reportedly died “in his sleep,” sparking a debate over what truly transpired.
In addition to the passings of Mushegian and Biosca, it is the unexpected nature of the death of the crypto mogul with an estimated net worth of $3 billion that raised questions surrounding the event, with the most searched queries including “Tiantian cause of death” and “what disease did Tiantian have.”
Libertex head
On November 25, Russian crypto billionaire Vyacheslav Taran was killed in a helicopter crash in France, along with his pilot, while flying from Lausanne, Switzerland, to Monaco, with the second passenger canceling at the last minute, which some found odd.
Taran was the co-founder and president of investment company Libertex Group with the eponymous crypto trading platform and founder of Forex Club – a multinational group of wholesale foreign exchange professionals, with Ukrainian news agency Unian alleging he had ties to Russian intelligence.
Whether these crypto billionaire deaths are nothing more than a string of unfortunate events with coincidental timing or something more sinister is at play behind the scenes remains to be revealed, but their stories nonetheless continue to be a source of controversy and conspiracy theories.