Controversial Bitcoin Billionaire Mircea Popescu Dies At 41

Bitcoin billionaire Mircea Popescu, who's thought to have owned $1 billion (roughly Rs. 7,428 crore) worth of the world's biggest cryptocurrency, has reportedly died in Costa Rica. The 41-year-old, also referred to as a Bitcoin evangelist by many, leaves a controversial legacy behind. “I like Bitcoin because I like freedom. Simple as that,” he had once said. Popescu also maintained a blog, which, many say, was a repository of racist, sexist content that was “not safe for work”. He's also known for starting MPEx, a Bitcoin securities exchange, in 2012.

Pete Rizzo, the editor of Bitcoin Magazine wrote a thread on Twitter curating some of Popescu's quotes about Bitcoin. Rizzo's thread starts with a post, “RIP Mircea Popescu (1980 – 2021)”. He then goes on to add, “Called ‘The Father of Bitcoin Toxicity' by some, Mircea will endure as one of #Bitcoin's most vilified figures and inarguably one of its greatest philosophers.”

Although the Bitcoin held by Popescu will see their value change, if the billionaire had not made arrangements for others to get access to his wallets, those tokens would end up being lost. Given the huge number of tokens that Popescu held, this could have an impact on the price of Bitcoin.

According to a Spanish-language publication, Teletica.com, Popescu died off the coast of Costa Rica, when he entered the sea to swim and was swept away by the current on June 23. The publication reported that a “41-year-old foreigner” had drowned in Playa Hermosa de Garabito, Puntarenas.

In another post by Rizzo, he wrote about Popescu's controversial nature. Rizzo shared the link of a website where Popescu “blogged quite regularly” but “warned” users that “while it includes many gems of brilliance, there's a lot of racist and sexist content”.

The blog is inaccessible in India, in all likelihood because of the nature of the content posted there.

In another tweet, Rizzo wrote that Popescu “inarguably demonstrated (and celebrated) behaviours that were bigoted, racist and that endangered human life", including those of key Bitcoin contributors. "There was good and there was bad," he wrote about the 41-year-old controversial figure.

"Bitcoin is not here for you to opine about it. Bitcoin is here to profoundly and oft times painfully change your life. Whether you agree or not, whether you give permission or not, whether you think it "acceptable" or "called for" or whatever else. Nobody asked you."