Nowadays, lifeless lunatics do not stay lifeless for lengthy. Take a bow John McAfee, one of the crucial wild personalities in computing, who was best-known for the antivirus software program that bears his identify however lived a fully wild life beholden to no-one. McAfee died in a Spanish jail cell in 2021 when he was attributable to be extradited to the US to face expenses of cryptocurrency fraud: An post-mortem declared the reason for dying was suicide, a verdict later confirmed by a Spanish court docket.
Evidently this hasn’t stopped hypothesis, primarily instigated by McAfee’s personal pronouncements whereas alive, that he was murdered in some conspiracy. McAfee posted this on X in 2019:
“Getting refined messages from US officers saying, in impact: ‘We’re coming for you McAfee! We’ll kill your self’. I received a tattoo at this time simply in case. If I suicide myself, I did not. I used to be whackd. Examine my proper arm.”
It’s possible you’ll surprise in regards to the spelling of “whacked.” As ever, McAfee was utilizing this declare to advertise one thing known as $Whackd. That was McAfee’s first memecoin enterprise and now we are able to say for certain it is not his final.
McAfee’s X account burst again into so-called life on January 23. “I am again with AIntivirus,” says the account. “An AI model of myself. You did not assume I’d miss this cycle did you?”
If you happen to go to the AIntivirus web site, there is a good image of McAfee wanting all digital and a button to “chat with John.” I attempted, and found that the AIntivirus account has been suspended on X, presumably for impersonating a lifeless particular person.
It quickly grew to become clear that Janice McAfee, John’s third spouse, is behind the scheme.
“For these of you who assume I’m tarnishing John’s legacy you clearly don’t know who John McAfee was,” posted Janice McAfee. “Whackd was the primary meme coin John created. The identical one who helped John create Whackd is identical one who labored on AIntivirus… I consider if John was nonetheless alive he would completely love the thought of getting an AI model of himself. He would most likely choose a battle with it.”
That a minimum of appears correct. And relatively brilliantly, after the McAfee AI account was suspended by X, his official account determined to select a battle with Elon Musk. “Thanks Elon Musk,” says the John McAfee account. “There’s all the time some authorities, or some company, that may attempt to do something to keep up the established order. However the cat is out of the bag on this one now. What are they going to do. Kill John once more?”
Do not lower your self on that edge. The venture has a Medium web page explaining what it is all about: “AIntivirus is not only one other meme token,” it booms unconvincingly, “AIntivirus is the treatment for different meme cash!” There are many guarantees about merchandise which are apparently set to launch this yr however, after all, not a lot in the way in which of exhausting element. The token’s value has fluctuated wildly since launch, with some estimates placing its whole worth between $25 and $30 million {dollars} however who actually is aware of: If you happen to do purchase this one, good luck.
Nicely, it is a weird coda to a weird life. McAfee made a number of fortunes via numerous enterprise ventures, however spent the final decade of his life embroiled in authorized troubles. He was described by police as a “particular person of curiosity” within the homicide of American Gregory Viant Faull, a neighbour, however by no means charged. He additionally tried to be the Libertarian candidate for US president twice, in 2016 and 2020, however was nominated on neither event.
