(N.Morgan) Now the Bitcoin “bankers” are starting to turn up dead. This time is was Autumn Radtke, the CEO of an upstart online currency exchange, died last week under mysterious circumstances at her home in Singapore. More deaths and no answers. I imagine those in the banking and Bitcoin exchanges are now getting very nervous about the futures.
Radtke, the U.S.-born head of First Meta, was found dead by local police Feb. 28, with the cause of death yet to be determined. In a statement on its website, First Meta said the company “was shocked and saddened by the tragic loss of our friend and CEO Autumn Radtke.” In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, the company’s director and nonexecutive chairman, Douglas Abrams, said the exact cause of Radtke’s death was “still under investigation.”
Prior to taking the reins at First Meta in 2012, the 28-year-old Radtke had once closely worked with technology giant Apple, to bring cloud-computing software to Johns Hopkins University, Los Alamos Labs and the Aerospace Corp., according to her biography. She then took up business development roles at tech start-ups Xfire and Geodelic Systems, according to information on her LinkedIn profile.
First Meta bills itself as a clearinghouse for the purchase and exchange of virtual currencies, including bitcoin. Her death comes as troubles swirl around the nascent cryptocurrency industry, and amid a rash of suicides in the financial industry as a whole.