Nov 1, 2022 at 05:53One of the co-founders of MakerDAO Nicholas Muhgian passed away in Costa Rica. The programmer, who is associated with the development of the BitShares project as well as the DAI fork called Rai by Reflexer, was found dead on one of the local beaches. There is speculation on the internet that it is murder.
MakerDAO is a company developing technology for borrowing, savings, and stable cryptocurrency on the Ethereum blockchain. The Maker protocol uses Ethereum smart contracts to automate the collateralization and lending of its stablecoin called DAI, as well as provide other functionalities. According to some investor’s opinions, Maker is one of the best crypto investment options for 2022. Since its launch in 2017, the coin has accumulated an ROI of 9,290.51%.
What is known?
Little is known about the incident itself. Nikolai was last seen on one of the beaches in Condado, a place considered one of the most dangerous because of the underwater currents. The local media even reported that there were several fatalities, but at the time of writing, this information was not confirmed.
The deceased was 29 years old. Nikolai was developing a decentralized stablecoin and dreamed of creating the “perfect” version of such a digital coin. However, despite an extensive and long career in the crypto industry, Nicholas Muhgian was not widely known publicly.
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According to the Twitter post, the programmer was involved in deals with the CIA.
“The CIA, Mossad, and elite pedophiles have launched a whole network in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean islands. It deals in human trafficking for sexual exploitation. They’re going to frame me through a laptop planted by my ex-girlfriend, who turns out to be a spy. They are going to torture me to death,” says the message.
It is not clear from the tweet exactly how he was connected to the agency or how he was blackmailed, but various theories began to appear on his page. Some are sure that Nikolai was killed because he knew too much about specific people or companies.
My theory is that in time he might of been able to make or come up with a decentralized stable coin or he knew some insider info on businesses or people… He was def a target for being cancelled.. yeesh
— OGamer (@morebtcplz) October 31, 2022
It is worth mentioning that this is not the first mysterious death of a crypto industry representative. In 2021, Mircea Popescu, a well-known Bitcoin enthusiast, drowned in Costa Rica as well. Also, the network is still actively discussing the death of John McAfee. Many are even sure that the businessman is still alive.
The death of a member of the crypto industry affects the entire market. If a person has not shared his private keys with someone beforehand, access to the funds can be lost forever. That’s what happened after QuadrigaCX CEO Gerald Cotten died in extraordinary circumstances and took with him the keys to his private wallets, which had a total of $145M in unconfirmed information. If the number of tokens that can be mined is limited, the loss of access to the wallet could reduce their total turnover.
However, it is possible to keep access to the money even after the death of the wallet holder. Let’s talk about that further.
Crypto inheritance
If a person dies suddenly, his funds accumulated in crypto accounts can be lost forever. It is good if he took care of it in advance and passed the data on the keys to his relatives, but it does not happen often. For example, American investor Matthew Mellon died in 2018 and took with him a fortune that is now valued at $500M.
The case described above is not uncommon, which is why those concerned have already figured out a way to get the money. Lucas Shore, the co-founder of multi-signature wallet Safe, said that one such method is social recovery. This is when a trusted person or circle of people who can restore the wallet after the death of the owner are appointed.
The Manager of Communications at Chainalysis, Trenton Kennedy, conducted a study in which he found out that 20% of all bitcoins in circulation have been lost, possibly forever. That’s about 3.7M BTC or ~$75M.
However, things are changing, countries are slowly beginning to recognize Bitcoin, which could lead to inheritance laws being applied to the coin, just like other investments of deceased people. Only the owners themselves must formally list their heirs in a will, and explain how they can access the money.
Until that happens, most investors continue to actively hide their wallet information. According to the Cremation Institute, only about 25 percent of investors have taken care of how to pass on funds after their death.
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