Nikolai Mushegian, the co-founder of MakerDAO and decentralized stablecoin DAI, was found dead on Friday in Puerto Rico.
The 29-year-old reportedly died by drowning due to the strong sea currents on the Condado beach in San Juan, Puerto Rico, according to local media outlet El Nuevo Día. By the time his body was rescued, there were no vial signs.
Per the report, the incident was reported to the local police on Oct 28, soon after which a local prosecutor and the San Juan Homicide Division started investigating the scene.
The beach has a reputation for being dangerous because of its strong undercurrents, leading to eight deaths in 2021 alone.
Famously known as the “DAI architect,” Mushegian was an active and reputed member of the crypto community.
He played an essential role in the development of MakerDAO and its forks Rico and Rai. The developer was also a co-founder of the automated market maker Balancer and was involved with PoS blockchain BitShares.
Most recently, Mushegian was working on several projects such as Rico – a free-floating collateralized stablecoin, dmap – an ultraminimalist immutable registry, manaflow – a smart-contract system with parallel validation, and some more projects, according to his personal website.
Rune Christensen, another co-founder and current CEO of MakerDAO, acknowledged Mushegian’s contributions on Monday over Twitter.
Other members of the community expressed their condolences.
Mushegian himself was very active on Twitter and had a follower base of more than 8000 users.
His last tweet, published just hours before his death, suggested he was being blackmailed by a Puerto Rico sex trafficking ring run by the CIA and Mossad.
In another tweet posted on Sept 5, he talked about being “suicided by CIA.”
