A crypto founder faked his death. We found him alive at his dad's house

Mental health and “software brains”

• Some see a pattern where technically skilled people in crypto can cause outsized damage during mental health crises.
• Others push back, arguing software engineers are “just normal people” and that mystifying their brains is harmful.
• A middle view emerges: not special, but self-selection matters—software tends to attract more detail‑obsessed, hair‑splitting personalities, possibly overlapping with autistic traits, without implying biological essentialism.

Is crypto inherently a scam?

• Many argue crypto is “all scams”: exchanges trade against users, do insider trading, rug pulls, insider “hacks,” etc.; BTC and ETH are criticized as environmentally harmful or regulatory dodges.
• Others distinguish tech from grifters: see value in censorship resistance, “fiscal self-sovereignty,” cross‑border transfers, and specific legitimate services (e.g., VPN payments, prediction markets, stablecoins).
• Several note that even if not all crypto is fraudulent, the space is “chock full” of scammers, and good-faith actors are driven out.

Blockchain tech, governance, and trust

• Pro‑blockchain commenters praise decentralization, security, and especially verifiable transparency; some claim finance, voting, and governance “would be better” on-chain.
• Critics counter with: scalability limits, the need for human judgment and recovery (lost keys, disasters, crime), and historical failures like The DAO.
• Debate over whether “trustless” systems are actually achievable; many practical chains are upgradable and involve trust in operators, at which point a normal database plus rule of law may suffice.
• Bank use-cases are contested: some say blockchains solve interbank trust; others say existing permissioned networks and legal agreements already cover this.

How scams and market caps work

• Explanations of inflated “market cap”: it’s just last trade price × total supply, easily gamed via tiny trades and wash trading between accounts.
• Liquidity-pool scams require some real capital, so when a founder “runs off with $1.4M,” some of that was likely their own seed money.

Faking death and criminal risk

• Commenters note that faking your death can be criminal fraud if used for financial gain—e.g., monetizing a memorial coin.
• Many are baffled by the plan: hiding at a parent’s house while moving funds is seen as naive crime, with discussion of how hard it is to successfully disappear and how most criminals eventually get caught.

MLM-style culture and broader reaction

• Multiple anecdotes about crypto pitches that resemble MLM: play‑to‑earn games, token farming schemes, social pressure at sponsored dinners.
• Observations that crypto communities (e.g., CoinMarketCap feeds) are saturated with obvious spam, impersonations, and deepfake‑amplified shilling.
• Some express regret for not speaking out more strongly against 2017–2021 hype (ICOs, NFTs) even when it felt wrong.
• A minority still “believe in crypto” and point to collaboration with large institutions or NGOs, but even they lament rampant rug pulls and the fixation on “getting rich” instead of building real products.