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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.
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?
"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
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.
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.
Why would the bankers jump from windows in 2008? They just managed to scalp the nation and get away with it. Except for those in Iceland where they ended up convicted of treason, apparently there are places where the justice system can work despite the wealth of the accused.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
wrong...this is probably a cover-up
On what do you base that? People die all the time. Even rich people. Everything you've said leads to "possibly" foul play, not "probably" foul play.
the police report was **completely inconclusive**
"no suspicion of 'foul play'" is a conclusion.
the context of the killing, namely the BTC armageddon, along with other factors leads to a rational suspicion of foul play
That also leads to rational suspicious of suicide. Why would somebody attack this person, of all people, due to BTC armageddon?
Generally --
Yes, conspiracies sometimes happen
Most things that happen aren't a conspiracy, even if somebody somewhere would have a motivation
Things that are conspiracies aren't any more successful than things that aren't (in other words, as rare as conspiracies are, most of them fail and some even shoot themselves in the foot)
Somebody always has a motivation against a CEO
To make a convincing conspiracy play, you need to know:
Who would benefit from a coverup
How hard would a coverup be
Who has the resources to perform a coverup
Coverup is basically never a good first guess. Even when it is a coverup. Kind of like if you see a rich person spending money, "lottery winner" isn't a good first guess, even if you get lucky.