Key facts:
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The maximalist bitcoiner drowned while swimming in Costa Rica.
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Popescu had claimed to have 1 million bitcoins, although his address is not known.
Businessman Mircea Popescu drowned last Wednesday, June 23, while swimming in Playa Hermosa, Costa Rica. According to versions, this individual, called by some “the father of toxicity in Bitcoin” had accumulated 1 million BTC.
The death of the maximalist of Romanian origin was confirmed by the authoritiesaccording to the local media report. They detail that the Costa Rican Red Cross practiced resuscitation maneuvers, but these were not successful.
With the death of Popescu, part of the bitcoiner community wonders about the fate of the BTC he held in hodl. As has been said in this text, although there is no accurate data, nor is it known what his Bitcoin address was, for several years there has been a rumor that the Romanian would have had in his possession 1 million BTC.
At the time of writing this article, the figure equates to more than USD 36 billion, as can be seen in the crypto news price calculator.
It is not something impossible to believe, if you consider that as early as 2011, Popescu had understood the importance of Bitcoin. On his Trilema website, he had written back then: “Bitcoin is the most important project of the human species right now.” In 2011 the price of the crypto asset was reportedly between $ 1 and $ 32.
“If Mircea Popescu really had 1 million bitcoins, will they now hit the market causing additional volatility? Or are they lost forever, reducing the final supply by about 5%?», it asked on Twitter the user who identifies as @DudeJLebowski.
Bitcoin Magazine believes that Popescu himself claimed to have 1 million BTC, although he adds that “more conservative estimates place their possessions in tens of thousands”. The truth is that in the absence of data and without certainties about the fate of their currencies, one can only speculate knowing that, probably, the doubt will never be answered.
“If he wanted to lock his coins forever, I’m sure he did. If you wanted to pass your coins [a otra persona tras su muerte] i’m sure he did.”, write the Twitter user identified as @ BitcoinX11.
Daniel Alós, member of the bitcoiner community in Argentina, agrees that you’ll never know if those coins were lost forever or not. “If he had an inheritance plan in place, whoever receives the BTC is not going to make it public,” he adds.
The fact that 5% of the total supply of bitcoin may have been lost forever, is no small fact. One of the features that make Satoshi Nakamoto’s cryptocurrency valuable is its scarcity. More than 21 million BTC will never be issued. Lost coins contribute to making the crypto asset scarcer and therefore more valuable.
Popescu: an aggressive brand of Bitcoin evangelism
In the aforementioned article of Bitcoin News Popescu is described as”an aggressive brand of Bitcoin evangelism without complexes and without concessions.” It adds that these characteristics are what made “his influence endure despite his documented cases of sexism and intolerance.”
There are several players in the bitcoiner community who they coincide in highlighting controversial features of the recently deceased maximalist. For example, Ricardo” Fluffypony ” Spagni, who served as maintainer of Monero (XMR), lo described as “a completely disgusting person,” although he acknowledges that he taught him a lot about Bitcoin.
“His criticisms were often unnecessarily mixed with cruelty, even when he was completely wrong. He rarely backed down, even when he was proven wrong, ” Spagni says. “And it was so misogynistic, to the point that it was unbearably predictable,” he adds.
Also the Argentine Franco Amati, co-founder of the NGO Bitcoin Argentina, describes him as”a dangerous pedant, but with lucidity to have intelligent looks”.
Indeed, Popescu’s sayings, even though they might contain truths, they were not sweetened or nuanced in order not to hurt sensitivities:
“Bitcoin is not here for your opinion. Bitcoin is here to change your life deeply and often painfully. Whether you agree or not, whether you give permission or not, whether you consider it acceptable, or required, or whatever. Nobody asked you.”
Mircea Popescu, maximalist bitcoiner.
“Goodbye, sweet master”
The one who doesn’t have a bad memory of Mircea is Hannah Wiggins, one of her life partners. In a blog post The Weth, entitled “Goodbye, sweet master”, he wrote heartfelt posthumous words to whom he describes as ” the greatest man who has ever lived.”
“Mircea Popescu did what she loved and did what she knew was right; these things were, almost without exception, the same. Without hesitation he gave himself completely to whatever work he had in hand, whether it was comfortable or not, whether it came naturally or not, whether he knew it could be done or not, ” Wiggins wrote.
The greatest man who ever lived died this morning doing one of the things he loved most: playing in the ocean. It was the Pacific, that endless expanse that taught him to love the sea, where he jumped the waves with his newest slave and retired to epicurean picnics. A trio of pelicans gliding over the breaking waves in that place where he defiantly breathed one last time, skimming the water in a final winged salute.
Hannah Wiggins, author of the blog The Whet.