A pre-announced death: the money and humanity behind Jeffy's fake death

Jessy, Golden Finance

The new narrative of the cryptocurrency meme: the death track.

On May 6, an obituary of the death of Jeffy Yu, co-founder of Zerebro, was announced, which instantly attracted public attention and was widely reported by the cryptocurrency media.

The release of this obituary seemed to confirm the authenticity of Jeffy's live broadcast of shooting himself on Pump.fun on May 4.

Then his suicide note on Mirror was also made public after the scheduled 72 hours. It mentioned the token $LLJEFFY, saying that this was his last work of art.

Along with the hype of the $LLJEFFY token, there were also various discussions in the community about whether Jeffy was dead or not. As the evidence of Jeffy's fake death was gradually uncovered, the price of the $LLJEFFY token also went on a roller coaster ride as various news spread. The market value of its token $LLJEFFY has also fallen from a peak of over 30 million U.S. dollars to 4 million U.S. dollars at press time.

A pre-announced death

The earliest incident was on May 4. Jeffy, a "genius" born in 2002, entered Stanford at the age of 15, became an engineer at the age of 19, and founded Zerebro at the age of 21, live-streamed his "suicide" on Pump.fun

-he put a gun to his jaw, and the video screen turned black after a gunshot.

Various eye-catching live broadcasts on Pump.fun are not uncommon. At first, Jeffy's suicide live broadcast did not cause much discussion.

On May 6, the obituary website Legacy published an obituary of Jeffy's death. Subsequently, various cryptocurrency media also reported the obituary. The token $LLJEFFY mentioned in his suicide note also saw its first wave of price increases.

According to Bubblemaps’ analysis, $LLJEFFY tokens were launched before Jeffy’s live broadcast on Pump.fun, and after the launch, the $LLJEFFY dev wallet and several associated addresses have been trading and destroying tokens.

On May 7, more evidence confirmed that Jeffy Yu was faking his death. Wonderland founder Daniele disclosed a detailed letter Jeffy Yu sent to early investors.

In this letter, Jeffy Yu said that he made and spread the video of himself shooting himself as the only way to get rid of continuous harassment, blackmail and threats. He was previously harassed and defrauded by his former partner, blackmailed by his close partner, and his personal information was exposed due to online hate crimes, and his personal safety was threatened.

He chose to fake his death instead of exiting the project because he felt that publicly exiting the encryption project would trigger more targeting, and the project's currency price would also fall.

In the future, he will focus on anonymous music creation and will deactivate his social accounts. Before taking these actions, he had found out that "faking death" was not illegal and everything was fine.

Similarly, according to the message sent by Lookonchain on X on May 7, according to their monitoring, on the morning of May 6, a wallet possibly related to Jeffy Yu sold 35.55 million $ZEREBRO for 8572 $SOL (1.27 million US dollars). Then 7100 $SOL (1.06 million US dollars) was transferred to $LLJEFFY's development wallet "G5sjgj".

"When you trade, you forget the humanity behind the numbers"

In addition to the fact that Jeffy's fake death has been basically confirmed, the operation of the project behind the $LLJEFFY token has not stopped. $LLJEFFY has not stopped destroying. Although the community has confirmed that Jeffy is dead, and the $LLJEFFY token has plummeted by about 90% from the high point, the popularity is still there. Traders have not stopped trading $LLJEFFY tokens. Traders even regard the destruction of $LLJEFFY dev's tokens as an important indicator of buying at the bottom. There are even similar remarks from the community that "whether dead or not, the project party that is still destroying tokens is a good project party."

"Money" does not care whether Jeffy is really dead. "Money" cares about where the hot spots are and where there is a wealth effect. This incident also has strong traces of marketing script planning. However, the final interpretation of the story is a dance between a large number of retail investors and project parties.

Looking back at the fermentation of the "fake death" incident, we will find that the progress of the incident is closely linked. First, there was a civil war in the Zerebro team. Then Jeffy could not bear the pressure and live-streamed his "suicide" on Pump.fun. The mirror article issued on time announced the birth of the $LLJEFFY token. Of course, the token had been deployed before his live broadcast. At the same time as the "suicide note" issued on time, there was also a death "obituary" that entered the public's view. It was this widely circulated "obituary" that made Jeffy's death and the token mentioned in the "suicide note" attract widespread public attention.

Then $LLJEFFY dev really did not sell a single coin as written in Jeffy's article, and kept destroying tokens. And the account suspected to be Jeffy has not stopped trading, which also confirms that this seems to be a carefully planned marketing.

In this carefully planned game, the winners are a minority, just like all Meme projects. There are not a few whales that lose money. On the afternoon of May 6, $LLJEFFY plummeted after a big rally due to @Irenezhao_'s remarks, and the funds attracted during this big rally were also trapped at the high point.

Although the project party is still buying and destroying, with so many locked-in plates, the possibility of the token hitting a high point again is already very low.

Such a carefully planned "fake death" game, the rise and fall of the token is the resonance of short-term emotions and the main players' trading.

In Jeffy's suicide note, he mentioned "I hate money" many times, and the story of the $LLJEFFY token is like a satire of his so-called "suicide note". The trading behavior of the address suspected to be his own after his "death" also seems to mock "I hate money".

Jeffy hates that money does not bring him happiness, and believes that meaning is greater than money. But in the face of a person's "death", it is nothing more than mourning online while constantly buying and selling on fomo.

From the perspective of performance art, it is the fomo behavior of the $LLJEFFY project and retail investors that jointly complete this artwork in the currency circle. As Jeffy said, "This artwork is about humanity" and "When you trade, you will forget the humanity behind the numbers."