A Solana token pumped 2,115% in three hours to a market cap of $104.93 million amid speculation that the founder of crypto AI agent Zerebro died by suicide, due to a published obituary, and had promoted a token from beyond the grave.
But, the obituary was later removed due to a lack of information provided to local media. The local coroner's office told Decrypt that nobody with the founder's surname had recently passed in the area.
On Sunday, users on X reported watching a now-deleted video of Jeffy Yu smoking a cigarette before shooting himself in the head with a gun—Decrypt also viewed this video. However, viewers expressed disbelief that Yu had actually died because of the video’s surprising lack of gore.
Late on Monday, the San Francisco Chronicle posted an obituary online via Legacy.com for the AI founder claiming he passed away at the age of 22.
“If you're reading this, it's because my 72 hour deadman’s switch triggered so I'm not here, at least physically,” a supposedly scheduled Tuesday blog post by Yu read. “This is a legacoin, my final art piece. $LLJEFFY”
When someone submits an obituary via the San Francisco Chronicle's online form they are required to pay a fee of at least $299 and provide confirmation of death via the funeral home, crematorium, or a death certificate. After filing the form, a source familiar with the process told Decrypt, the obituary is automatically uploaded to Legacy.com.
The Jeffy Yu obituary filing did not provide any funeral home, crematorium details, or a death certificate, the source told Decrypt. As a result, the obituary was removed once the staff at the San Francisco Chronicle realized there was no confirmation of death.
The San Francisco and San Mateo Coroner's Offices told Decrypt that nobody with the surname Yu has died in the area since Friday, April 2.
Legacy.com said that it uploads exactly what is provided by national newspapers and removed the Yu obituary, without explanation, when requested by the San Francisco Chronicle. But on-chain damage had already been done.
In his supposedly posthumous Sunday blog post, Yu announced the inception of the “Legacoin,” a term referencing legacy meme coins that are dedicated to someone who has passed. This post was signed “LLJEFFY,” presumably standing for long live Jeffy. It was later revealed to be the ticker for his Legacoin.
As a result, according to DEX Screener, the Pump.fun launched Solana token LLJEFFY skyrocketed 2,115% to a market cap of $104.94 million. The full Tuesday blog post dives deep into Yu’s struggles with how trading can ruin art, why he hates money, and explains that internet fame led to the downfall of his personal life.
“As soon as I got a little rich and a little famous online, everything meaningful fell apart, friends, family, romantic relationships, co-founders,” the post says. “Nothing was simple anymore, everyone was ulterior.”
Yu co-founded Zerebro, alongside Tint Blorm, an AI agent which gained notoriety due to its emo trap rap career and punchy personality on social media.
The Zerebro token that the project was tied to peaked at a $784 million market cap in January, according to DEX Screener. But its price has since collapsed 94% to $41 million amid broader macro economic pressures and the AI meta losing hype.
LLJEFFY soon came tumbling down when investors realized that the deployer wallet was buying up the token—despite Yu supposedly being deceased. As a result, the token plummeted 86.8% in an hour to a market cap of just $13.8 million.
Yu and Blorm did not respond to Decrypt's request for comment.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen meme coin traders speculating on a tragic event.
Last year, a meme coin dev set himself on fire while livestreaming for his token causing it to spike in value while Mikol, its creator, was receiving medical attention in hospital for third degree burns. Months later, a young man from California nicknamed “Crack Head Dev” faked his death after accidentally passing out from smoking too much fentanyl—again, causing the token to rise in value.
Then late in 2024, the trend came to boiling point when a user allegedly hanged himself on a Pump.fun livestream in order to promote his token. It was later revealed that this was indeed fake. This led to Pump.fun removing its livestreaming feature.
“We should not make a lot of money on this kind of thing,” an X user posted, also according to Google Translate, in response to the Zerebro founder’s alleged death. “Healthy values, bottom lines, and morals, once they disappear, they will never be there again.”
Edited by Stacy Elliott.
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