Head of virtual currency exchange found dead in Singapore

[Tony_FLADEM]

Source: CNBC

Autumn Radtke, the 28-year-old CEO of an upstart bitcoin exchange, died last week under mysterious circumstances at her home in Singapore.

The U.S.-born head of First Meta was found dead by police on Feb. 28, with the cause of death yet to be determined. In a statement on its website, First Meta said the company "was shocked and saddened by the tragic loss of our friend and CEO Autumn Radtke."

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, the company's director and nonexecutive chairman, Douglas Abrams, said the exact cause of Radtke's death was "still under investigation."

Prior to taking the reins at First Meta in 2012, the 28-year-old Radtke had once closely worked with technology giant Apple to bring cloud-computing software to Johns Hopkins University, Los Alamos Labs and the Aerospace Corp., according to her biography. She then took up business development roles at tech start-ups Xfire and Geodelic Systems, according to information on her LinkedIn profile.

First Meta bills itself as a clearing house for the purchase and exchange of virtual currencies, including bitcoin.



Read more: http://www.cnbc.com/id/101468694

[Diclotican]

1. Tony_FLADEM

Tony_FLADEM

I wonder if he got killed - by someone who had lost a lot of money in that type of scam.... But who still had the ressourses to make a retribution of the one who might was responsible for the loss....

Diclotican

[Demeter]

5. Hej, Diclotican!

Autumn would most likely be female. Suspicious death in not improving my impression of bitcoin.

[JI7]

6. she

[Renew Deal]

2. What connection does bitcoin have to Forex?

[phantom power]

21. Forex isn't involved with bitcoin

but with all the recent financial-industry deaths, it's hard to not idly wonder if there's some kind of connection.

[elfin]

3. Has the virtual currency biz attracted the vicious criminal element?

Still can't quite grasp the concept and how it works in the "real" world, but it seems to this geezer it is about finding a way to avoid taxes and conceal illegal activities such as arms transactions, gambling profits, drug trafficking etc.

Libertarian monetary idealists may see this movement as a way to "free" individuals from unpalatable government regulation, but the latest news of Bitcoin "banks" failing and now a possible murder suggests to me that cyber crime crap is just beginning to hit the fan to destabilize markets in ways we can't even imagine.

[rocktivity]

4. Well, let me put it this way

I saw a tv program about a bitcoin convention in Miami Florida -- the money laundering capital of the world!


rocktivity

[JI7]

7. that's what came to mind just because it was bitcoin

[Crowman1979]

12. Not as much vicious, as it is well organized.

More than likely, I think it must of have been the Triads. Or some other organization with connections in Singapore.

[Chan790]

18. A long time ago.

Early adopters, both because it's convenient for money laundering and it's hard to police transactions conducted in BTC. I know a former drug dealer who was using it to launder their proceeds before the libertarians ever heard of bitcoin, back when Mt.Gox was still for-the-most-part just a forum for the buying/selling/trading of gaming cards.

Prior to being shut down, Silk Road was a virtual online anonymous bazaar where you could buy anything using bitcoin...including drugs, fake ID, guns, bomb-making instructions, C4 and professional hits. The last one is really what led to their downfall. The founder tried to hire a federal agent to hit a problem customer; he'd also fucked-up and accidentally revealed his IP address. They believe he previously had used the service at least once to contract a hit.

[Junkdrawer]

8. I guess "they" figured that a potential BRICS Bank currency....

would be bad enough. No lousy virtual currency sneaking up from behind.

[toby jo]

9. Maybe she was about to expose something

could be it was an inside job and she said 'no' to the coverup

[tofuandbeer]

10. That sounds dark—and only 28 years old.

[pacalo]

11. The last paragraph on all the financial-related deaths leaves room for suspicion.

Financial-related suicides are common during times of market upheaval, such as the Great Depression or the Crash of 1987. However, the recent deaths have coincided with a surge of major indexes to record highs.

(bolding is mine)

[riderinthestorm]

13. +1.

[awoke_in_2003]

14. Show me the corpse...

not trying to be macabre, but this person my be drinking Mai Tais in Fiji somewhere.

[elehhhhna]

15. in the past few months many Asian countries have put the kibosh on this bitcoin thing

and she was THE salesperson for this tinycap startup (Ceo, FINE. kEEP IN MIND that major TITLE INFLATION IS A BUSINESS NECESSITY IN most Asian countries. (sorry for the caps))

I think she wasn't taking the tanking of her big opportunity very well, maybe. Just an opinion.

[awoke_in_2003]

16. Very possible, too...

hell, we have real bankers killing themselves, why not this one?

[pacalo]

19. With Ken Lay?

Interesting scenario, but whose body would be in the morgue?

[AndyTiedye]

20. Maybe They Were Short

There is no limit to how much a short-seller can lose in a rising market.

[Overseas]

17. Sad K&R.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

22. They are obviously people out there who do not like Bitcoins

[Hekate]

23. Or bankers of any stripe. The "mystery deaths" are piling up.