Dispatch

The End of the McAfee Era

John McAfee was one of the most original, controversial, loud, and totally un-ignorable figures in the crypto industry.

Coming to prominence as the inventor of the first commercial anti-virus software, McAfee had a winding career in technology, security, and even botany in Belize (although that one ended with him fleeing the country around some pretty serious violent allegations).

Eventually, he found his way into decentralization, Bitcoin and crypto, a domain that fit his Libertarian politics (he ran for president in 2016 and 2020) quite well.

Still McAfee became best known during the ICO era for being both one of the most unabashed project shills (he got a “Skycoin” tattoo in 2018) as well as one of the more hilarious commentators. No one will ever forget what body part he said he’d eat if Bitcoin didn’t reach $1M a coin by the end of 2020.

Over the last few years, as the SEC started to come after him, he went deeper into hiding – spending most of his time tweeting from his boat. In October of last year he was caught and arrested in Spain. In March of this year he was formally indicted. On Wednesday, a Spanish judge authorized extradition and within hours, McAfee was dead from an apparent suicide.

The internet is filled with disbelief and yes, theories that all was not as reported.

But whatever the actual cause, one of the icons of an increasingly bygone age of crypto is gone. RIP.

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Mainstreaming

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