Bitcoin billionaire Mircea Popescu's death: Fate of $1 billion crypto fortune remains unknown.
Mircea Popescu, a Romanian bitcoin blogger and billionaire who is thought to be one of the cryptocurrency's greatest owners, has reportedly drowned off the coast of Costa Rica.
While Popescu's death remains shrouded in mystery, many have wondered what would happen to the $1 billion in Bitcoin he had acquired. Unless he had given someone access to his digital wallets, there's a chance it'll be gone forever.
Alexander Mardar, a cryptocurrency specialist, stated on Twitter that Popescu's death could result in the loss of "a considerable quantity of $BTC (Bitcoin) for all time."
Interestingly, this isn't the first time a big Bitcoin holding has been lost forever for a variety of reasons, including the owner's untimely death, a misplaced key, an unintentional system flaw, or simply by accident.
For example, after Gerald Cotton, the creator of Canada's largest crypto exchange, died unexpectedly in 2019, his widow notified investors that only Cotten held the keys to $135 million in cryptocurrency.
Another incidence occurred in 2013, when James Howells of the United Kingdom, who had mined 7,500 Bitcoins and placed them on the hard drive of his laptop, tossed away the hard drive while cleaning his house. His Bitcoin assets would be worth around $255 million in today's money.
Popescu, like Howells, was an early bitcoin adopter. He had a tumultuous life and was called the "Father of Bitcoin Toxicity" by the crypto news site Bitcoin.com. He was also regularly accused of racism and misogyny. Some, on the other hand, saw him as a visionary and dubbed him a "Bitcoin Evangelist."
