Bitcoin’s (BTC) price hit $100,000 at 02:38 am (GMT) and is currently the seventh largest asset in the world with a market cap of over $2 trillion.

This puts it ahead of the likes of silver, tech conglomerate Meta, and Elon Musk’s Tesla — a huge achievement for the currency that once upon a time, struggled to cross the $1,000 threshold.

Needless to say, many crypto proponents are celebrating the occasion. MicroStrategy chief Michael Saylor, who’s built a career selling shares of his company to buy ridiculous amounts of BTC, announced, “There is going to be a 100K Party. ”

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong also marked the milestone, claiming that if someone had bought $100 worth of BTC in June 2012 and held on, it would be worth $1.5 million today. On the flip side, he pointed out, $100 in USD would have dropped in price by $27.

Podcaster and Bitcoin supporter Peter McCormack was particularly happy after his $20,000 bet that BTC’s price would hit $100,000 this year proved to be correct. He was so happy, in fact, he’s proposed a new bet that BTC will reach $1 million by 2030. 

Following BTC’s landmark surge, people have been dunking on famed financial analyst Peter Schiff, who said in 2019 that it would never reach $100,000. 

Another huge prediction from that same year came from the late John McAfee, who said, “If bitcoin breaks $100K, you can bet it will break a million.”

McAfee also bet that BTC would hit $500,000 by 2020 and claimed that if it didn’t, he would “eat his own dick” on live TV.  

Elsewhere, Isaac Miller, who filmed himself 11 years ago watching BTC’s price break $100, recreated the video today.

Read more: Bitcoin bet made on ‘pussy terms’ is about to make both parties bank

BTC’s price has been steadily increasing since February, picking up speed in November. Previous bull runs took place in 2013, 2017, 2020, and 2021. BTC is now priced at $102,444, and the Bitcoin Fear and Greed Index stands at 84, indicating “Extreme Greed.”

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Fans of true crime have as much unsolved material to investigate in crypto as in virtually any other industry. Unlike cash or bank transfers, crypto allows payment of millions of dollars within seconds and this instant and irreversible settlement of nearly unlimited sums of money makes it a perfect tool for foul play.

The massive sums of money in play also go hand-in-hand with extravagant lifestyles, risky travel, drugs, and various poor life decisions.

As a result, it’s not entirely surprising that there have been a number of high-profile deaths over the past 15 years.

Unsolved deaths of crypto leaders

Perhaps the most famous crypto disappearance is John McAfee, the creator of the popular McAfee Antivirus freemium software used on hundreds of millions of computers. After exiting that software company, McAfee became a crypto promoter and drug-addicted globe-trotter. 

The tech mogul-turned-crypto bro ended up blowing most of his $100 million fortune, dying in an apparent suicide in a Spanish prison with just a few million left. However, his death remains a mystery to this day for two simple reasons. 

First, it was well-known that McAfee held substantial sums of money on hardware crypto wallets while facing numerous civil lawsuits, providing a motive for faking his own death. Second, he tweeted a few weeks before his death, “Know that if I hang myself, a la Epstein, it will be no fault of mine.”

The next most famous death in crypto history is probably Gerald Cotten, the founder of Canada’s once-largest crypto exchange, Quadriga CX. After stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from customers, Cotten’s wife claims that he died in India without giving anyone the private keys to those funds. 

The declaration of his death for medical reasons is curious not only for its exotic locale but also because Cotten’s QuadrigaCX bitcoin moved after his supposed death. Documentarians chronicled his career and skepticism over his death in the Netflix movie The Crypto King.

Read more: Crypto legend John McAfee’s suicide confirmed by Spanish courts

Private keys at the bottom of the sea

Mircea Popescu is another curious death. The proudly toxic Bitcoin maximalist was the 2012 (yes, 2012) founder of MPex. He supposedly died with tens of thousands of bitcoin. Media reported his net worth at around $2 billion as of the time of his accident on June 23, 2021.

According to Costa Rican sources, Popescu was swimming near Playa Hermosa and simply died in the current. However, no one has seen his remains to confirm his death.

Another swimming accident allegedly took the life of Nicolai Arcadie Muchgian, the co-founder of Maker. Maker operates one of the first ostensibly decentralized stablecoins, DAI, and manages over $8 billion in assets today. Condado and the nearby San Juan metro area of Puerto Rico is a tax haven for crypto elites, however, making his death with no remains in that area suspicious.

Bob Lee, the founder of CashApp and contributor to MobileCoin, is another troubling crypto death. Jack Dorsey gave prominence to Lee’s CashApp bitcoin exchange, and Elon Musk promoted Signal, which exclusively used MobileCoin. Lee was stabbed to death in another crypto elite hub: San Francisco.

Read more: MobileCoin founder Bob Lee’s murder was planned, prosecutors say

Other unsolved murder cases and disturbing deaths in the history of crypto include billionaire Matthew Mellon, Tiantian Kullander of Amber Group, Autumn Radtke of First Meta, Vyacheslav Taran of Forex Club and Libertex Group, Argentine crypto trader Fernando Pérez Algaba, and Javier Biosca of Algorithms Group.

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The post Unsolved: These crypto leaders died and no one knows why appeared first on Protos.

A Spanish court has officially ruled the death of software entrepreneur and alleged crypto grifter John McAfee as suicide, a decision that confirms the findings of a previous autopsy and dismisses his family’s claims of foul play.

In late June 2021, Spanish authorities discovered the 75-year-old tech visionary dead in his prison cell near Barcelona just hours after his extradition to the US was granted. 

According to Reuters, Spanish court documents dated July 24, say, “There is not a single element of suspicion, of a charge against a third party, of criminal behavior.” 

McAfee’s death was previously ruled a suicide following an autopsy in 2021. However, his family refuted this and successfully appealed to the court, allowing for further investigation into his death. 

His death also fueled a host of conspiracy theories that pointed to previous tweets to further fuel their claims. One of these tweets read, “Know that if I hang myself, a la Epstein, it will be no fault of mine.”

John McAfee’s crypto history

John Mcafee, alongside his bodyguard, was accused by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of fraud and money laundering through their promotion of cryptocurrencies. 

They reportedly ran a pump-and-dump scheme selling crypto they had hyped up for a profit, and had secretly made $23 million in undisclosed ICO payments. 

Following his death, someone claiming to possess over 50 gigabytes of unseen footage of McAfee as a fugitive decided to mint the clips as an NFT and auction it on Rarible.

The footage was first listed for 500 ETH in March 2021. However, the price dropped to 20 ETH by November of that year and was eventually delisted on Christmas Eve.

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