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Police Say No Foul Play In Death of Bitcoin Exchange CEO Autumn Radtke
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt: "The CEO of a virtual-currency exchange was found dead near her home in Singapore. A police spokesman said Thursday that initial investigations indicated there was no suspicion of 'foul play' in the Feb. 26 death, meaning officers do not suspect murder. The spokesman said police found 28-year-old Autumn Radtke, an American, lying motionless near the apartment tower where she lived. Police have so far classified the death as 'unnatural,' which can mean an accident, misadventure, or suicide." Hat tip to Jamie McCarthy for Slate's thoughtful take on Radtke's death, and the way it's been reported (notably, several sources have speculated that her death was a suicide, with little support).
According to the Washington Post, "Police have so far classified the death as 'unnatural,' which can mean an accident, misadventure, or suicide," and they've taken that and combined it with "Last month she linked to an article on entrepreneurs suffering depression, commenting above the link: everything has its price." WaPo stops short of outright *saying* she committed suicide, but that's certainly the conclusion they're leading their readers to.
but you do understand why I am suspicious anyway......right????
Did she know something we don't (yet)?
She's the eleventh person in the financial industry to commit suicide this year.
How long would it take to eliminate enough bitcoins to make the currency unworkable? If many people with large amounts of BC die without revealing the location and passwords to their cold-storage wallets, a shrinking pool of tradable bitcoins would eventually render it inefficient, yes? Or will BC simply be expanded in subdividion, leading to massive deflation over time (in bitcoin value - an oz of gold = 1BC today, but maybe it would only be worth 0.01BC in ten years, or 0.00001 in a hundred, due to a smaller pool of tradable coin)
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Aside from lazy reporting, of course...
Is because there have been what conspiracy theoriests are calling an unusual number of banker (though they usually use bankster) suicides and mysterious deaths, since the start of the year.
So they're trying to make this death fit a pattern that may not actually exist.
I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
this stuff is beginning to read like a script...it has everything.
never bring a twinkie to a food fight.
"The Todd family's suspicions of foul play stemmed from various pieces of circumstantial evidence. For instance, they alleged that police had failed to properly investigate the scene of the crime, that the police neglected to dust for fingerprints, that the suicide notes ostensibly left by Dr Todd were out of character, that the crime scene did not match the description given by authorities, and that a pathologist in the United States found that his body showed evidence of a struggle, rather than a suicide."
Death of Shane Todd
Justice 4 Shane Todd
It's HAPPENING!!!
She was known for having launched a product, aimed specifically at Second Life.
Well in that case it definitely is murder.
Furries got her.
The real story is that there have been an unusually high number of Banker, and Financial sector deaths. Ether suicides, or suspected suicides. This is the only one I know of that officially connected to bitcoin, but the nature of bitcoin hides it well enough that it would require an investigation to prove the others were into bitcoin as well. Which probably isn't even being looked into after their death. I hate bitcoins and 'coiners, but I hope this isn't a sign of Black Tuesday window jumping. I want bitcoin to be a lesson learned, and move on. Not a kill yourself so you can't warn the next group of just how stupid they're being.
What's the difference between 2008 and 1929?
Not enough bankers jumping from windows.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
WaPo stops short of outright *saying* she committed suicide, but that's certainly the conclusion they're leading their readers to.
There's a reason the press shies away from it. Mental health organizations have guidelines and recommendations on how to report responsibly on suicides.
The absolute worst is reporting on the contents of, or even mentioning, a note, because then people who are on the edge / suicidal think "Ah, I can get my letter published too!"
This sounds absurd, but it's well demonstrated that suicides are "infectious", and reports in the media about a suicide can cause others who are close to do it themselves. It's one of the reasons, after a suicide in a school/workplace/community, you see an immediate effort made to make resources available to everyone else.
Please help metamoderate.
I wonder if Charon will take Bitcoins...
What say you?
I say that's a pretty shitty post.
Just like bankers in the Depression.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
I'm sure she threw herself onto 9 or 10 bullets ... at the bottom of an elevator shaft ... while wearing a blindfold.
A Tulsa man was found with hands and feet tied, and was decapitated. The police called it suicide. So I do not know what these cops mean when they say suicide. Cops called Hillary Clinton's old lawyer boyfriend's death a suicide, when he died of a gunshot wound with no gun found.
wake up and hold your nose
Some Millenial expat dot-com dbag offed herself?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
False equivalence. Bankers have a legal and moral and societal responsibility to manage the money the control in responsible ways, subject to laws and regulation.That is supposed to be why they earn good, even outrageous salaries.
Thus they carry the lions share of the blame. Many people were misled or outright lied to and swindled by bankers. Far fewer individuals have the power or resources to pull something like that off.
With great power (and wealth) come great responsibility. Also far greater punishment/redress for wrongdoing.
But I'm sure you will carry on with your false equivalence, no doubt in the spirit of your cultural heroes like Inspector Javert. Death to the bread stealers!
Bitcoins are infinitely (read: arbitrarily) divisible. Subdivision is neither inflation nor deflation.
Your comment is overrated.
People can die suddenly and randomly of natural causes; even famous people.
Fiction may abhor a coincidence, but real life loves them.
Subdivision isn't, but elimination is. If we agree that all the BTC can purchase 100T of gold, and then we destroy half of the BTC, does that double the value of BTC? I t might, it might not. It's not pegged to a single standard, only what the market feels it is worth. It's run up has been predicated on a limited supply. What if that supply shrinks?
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
There are probably dozens of others that haven't been reported.
Bankers in the United States have a Legal responsibility to provide mortgages to low income families under the 1995 rewriting of the the Community Reinvestment Act, which put added pressure on banks to lend in low-income neighborhoods. This combined with Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac's underwriting of loans that otherwise wouldn't have ever been in a banks best interest is what caused the housing bubble. Don't get me wrong greed helped, but it was the government that caused the rules and regulations to encouraging this behavior.
So no banks don't have the lions share of the blame. The US government's crazy everyone must own a house even if they can't afford it policy is to blame. But go ahead believing everything you read on some liberal blog if that makes you happy just stay out of government.
First Meta Exchange (where CEO Autumn Radtke worked) only allows bitcoin to be used for purchases of the other virtual currencies they trade. BTC purchases of IMVU Credits, Lindens, Nuvo Notes, Toricredits and Friends Hangout Tokens are actually handled through bitpay.
In other words, First Meta Exchange wasn't really a "bitcoin exchange". Of course, if the headline read "Police Say No Foul Play In Death of Torricredits Exchange CEO Autumn Radtke", few would've clicked.
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wrong...this is probably a cover-up....**technically** you're right, in the sense that yes...indeed...details of a suicide or abuse situation that are irrelevant are often left out voluntarily by the reporter. Yes that happens...
the police report was **completely inconclusive** and give the context of the killing, namely the BTC armageddon, along with other factors leads to a rational suspicion of foul play
your point is not a counterpoint to GP...its obliquely related, and serves to inject uncertainty into the debate, but it is not a counter...
the WaPo article saying it was "suicide" is not trustworthy and neither is your line of thinking
Thank you Dave Raggett
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Comment removed based on user account deletion
There have been over 20 bankers around the world in recent months that "comitted suicide". I don't buy it, especially a pretty 28 year old CEO with everything to live for.
There are only three situations that match these events.
1. Either it's just coincidence that so many in high level banking industry positions are killing theselves just because they are depressed over other events in their life. (I don't buy that).
2. They all realize something is about to happen that is so bad, that the better option is to kill themselves.
3. They know something so bad, and so important that somebody thinks they should be silenced.
I already know the answer; the economy is collapsing (by design) and the power players (aka the New World Order) are trying to establish a one world fascist government, and a one world money system, with just a select few in charge of it all.
This is what happens when you get at the intersection of human life, drugs, dirty money, and crime. Terrible people involved in terrible things with their lives ending in terrible ways.
Bitcoins only ever existed as a tool to facilitate crime, and it's unsurprising that human misery will be forever associated with it.
Someone is dead, likely from suicide stemming from clinical depression.
This really is not the best place to inject all the politics and conspiracy theories.
I would add that the only reason that the infinite (or arbitrary) divisibility is useful is because the value of individual BTC would need to go up very much if BTC ever became a commonly accepted currency, whether this was because some BTC were being lost, or because the supply is already limited.
I would argue a good currency needs to be linked to the amount of economic activity to avoid it being deflationary. No technological solution exists that would allow a currency that is only based on "maths" to avoid the inevitable deflationary spiral.
you can have "no suspicion of foul play" AND "completely inconclusive" exist simultaneously....they are not mutually exclusive at all
ok listen guy, you're not the only one who understands this...in fact I assumed this level of knowledge:
1. rich criminals
2. not too hard for rich criminals
3. rich criminals
the details & context of the ***unexplained death*** are PRIMA FACIA meet your conspiracy possibility criteria
Thank you Dave Raggett
I don't see Bitcoin mentioned anywhere on her exchange site.
A horrible thing to say about a possible suicide.
But it made me laugh.
We are not perfect.
-kgj
Bitcoins only problem is solely one of trust. If I can't depend upon exchanges to protect the wealth represented in my virtual wallet, or those you wish to trade with find it unacceptable, for whatever reason, Bitcoin will implode.
Trillion$ of corporate dollars hoarded by the largest multinationals in off-shore bank accounts, SIVs, etc. have no effect on the value of USD, and it has never mattered how many dollars were squirreled away in mattresses or safety deposit boxes. Only when people lost trust in the dollar because of the underlying instability of investment banking practices due to malfeasance in the financial industry has the USDs value as a currency suffered.
There is an underlying pool of wealth that was used to justify the value of bitcoins. The fact that someone loses a virtual wallet has no effect on that initial pool of wealth. It's like an inactive bank account. Banks are only required to keep a small percentage of actual currency on hand, anway. The rest is a virtual pool of wealth used for whatever banking activity is legal, and the fact that no one seems to claim the dollars that went in at first has no effect on their value as an asset to the banking system.
As a virtual currency, you can always slice the electrons as much as needed simply by claiming that each is greater. As long as people buy the explanation, you're good to go. The exchanges themselves have as much to do with the 'value' of bitcoins.
They legitimate the currency's existence and facilitate its conversion into whatever other currencies their customers wish to use. It's the utility, dependability and security of bitcoins that are its fundamental to its value.