Crypto Twitter Pays Tribute to MakerDAO Co-Founder, Also Claims CIA Assassinated Him

Tributes are flooding in for MakerDAO co-founder Nikolai Mushegian who died at the age of 29 on Tuesday. At the same time, corners of crypto Twitter are alleging the entrepeneur was assassinated by the CIA.

Mushegian, a resident of San Juan, died whilst swimming at Condado Beach in Puerto Rico. His body was discovered on the beach, with the cause of death listed as drowning. A report stated that the currents dragged Mushegian away whilst he was swimming

The young developer was responsible for the DAI fork, RAI and Rico, as well as being the co-founder of Balancer Labs. Mushegian was also known among the community for being a fierce critic of self-styled CEOs, VCs, and CTOs, which he believed were worse than the establishment.

He also donated over US$1 million to his alma mater, Carnegie Mellon University, in 2022.

Tributes

Crypto Twitter have shared their condolences, offering tributes to the recently deceased.

MakerDAO co-founder Rune Christensen wrote, “Nikolai was one of the only people in the early days of Ethereum and smart contracts who could predict the possibility of smart contract hacks and invented the security-oriented approach to smart contract design we know today. Maker would have been toast without him.”

Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson shared, “I knew Nikolai from back in the Bitshares days. He was a very young and extremely bright man who had a very wide array of interests from game theory to urbit. I believe he went to CMU and had a deep understanding of technology. Sad to see what happened.”

Paradigm venture partner added, “Impossible to overstate Nikolai’s genius. It was obvious in everything he touched – a simple elegance. RIP.”

CIA did it

Speculators and conspiracy theorists are alleging that Mushegian was whacked by the US Central Intelligence Agency. Rumours began on Reddit in a post that Mushegian was killed because he was trying to expose a sex trafficking ring in Puerto Rico.

“Leading up to his death, Nikolai began to send out cryptic tweets. These are a few tweets that I found since September. I’m sure I missed a few,” the Redditor wrote.

Prior to his death, Mushegian allegedly tweeted under a different account, “CIA and Mossad and pedo elite are running some kind of sex trafficking entrapment blackmail ring out of Puerto Rico and caribbean islands. They are going to frame me with a laptop planted by my ex GF who was a spy. They will torture me to death.”’

Crypto analyst Dylan Leclair, who shared images of Mushegian’s supposed final tweets wrote, “Frankly, the pursuit of truth is more important.”