Nikolai Mushegian, co-founder of the cryptocurrency lending platform MakerDAO and the decentralized Dai (DAI) stablecoin, was discovered lifeless in Puerto Rico final week.
Mushegian died as a consequence of drowning after being dragged by sea currents on the Condado seashore in San Juan, the native newspaper El Nuevo Día reported. Mushegian had no important indicators by the point his physique was rescued.
The Condado seashore is taken into account one of many world’s most harmful locations for swimmers, reportedly taking the lives of at the very least eight folks in 2021.
The unlucky occasion was reported to native authorities on the morning on Oct. 28. In accordance with a police report, Mushegian was a resident of San Juan. The scene was reportedly investigated by the San Juan Murder Division and an area prosecutor.
Mushegian was an essential determine within the cryptocurrency group, contributing to a number of trade initiatives, with some referring to him as a “Dai architect.” The 29-year-old crypto developer is understood for his work with MakerDAO forks Rico and Rai, in addition to the proof-of-stake blockchain community BitShares. Mushegian can also be a co-founder of the automated market maker Balancer.
MakerDAO founder and CEO Rune Christensen took to Twitter on Oct. 31 to say that Mushegian contributed essential inputs to Maker’s improvement and has finished some essential work for the reason that early days of Ethereum.
Nikolai was one of many solely folks within the early days of Ethereum and good contracts who was capable of predict the potential for good contract hacks and invented the security-oriented method to good contract design we all know at this time. Maker would have been toast with out him
— Rune (@RuneKek) October 31, 2022
Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson wrote on Twitter that he knew Mushegian from again within the BitShares days. “He was a really younger and intensely vivid man who had a really big selection of pursuits from recreation idea to Urbit,” Hoskinson stated, including that the coder had a deep understanding of expertise.
Tether co-creator Craig Sellars noted that Mushegian’s demise got here just some days after the MakerDAO group voted to approve custody of $1.6 billion in USD Coin (USDC) with the Coinbase crypto alternate.
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Mushegian was an lively group member on social media. His Twitter account, Delete_shitcoin, has about 5,500 followers on the time of writing. His final tweet was published just some hours earlier than his demise, referring to options of alleged blackmail from america Central Intelligence Company and Mossad. Mushegian beforehand made related statements on Twitter, hinting at a possible “suicide” by the CIA as one in every of his potential futures.