In brief
- Jeffy Yu, 22, was found alive at his parents’ home days after a viral video appeared to show his suicide.
- His apparent death triggered a 2,000% rally in his Solana-based meme coin $LLJEFFY, which later crashed.
- Authorities confirmed no death matching Yu’s profile had occurred; the video and obituary were later removed.
Zerebro creator Jeffy Yu, who supposedly committed suicide last weekend, has been found alive by a reporter at his mom and dad’s house.
The 22-year-old dev was discovered Wednesday by the San Francisco Standard, which found him padding around in flip-flops. He was visibly shocked at being found.
Yu claimed he had been “doxxed” and “harassed,” and lamented that his poor parents would now have to move house.
“You can see the PTSD in my eyes, right?” he said, before telling the reporter to leave.
Zerebro Founder Obituary Removed Amid $105 Million 'Legacoin' Token Speculation
A Solana token pumped 2,115% in three hours to a market cap of $104.93 million amid speculation that the founder of crypto AI agent Zerebro died by suicide, due to a published obituary, and had promoted a token from beyond the grave. But, the obituary was later removed due to a lack of information provided to local media. The local coroner's office told Decrypt that nobody with the founder's surname had recently passed in the area. On Sunday, users on X reported watching a now-deleted video of J...
Yu’s alleged death sparked a meme coin trading frenzy. On Sunday, users on X reported watching a now-deleted video of Jeffy Yu smoking a cigarette before shooting himself in the head with a gun.
A scheduled blog post was released after the video surfaced, featuring Yu’s philosophical musings on fame and fortune, and describing his final act as a “legacoin,” or legacy meme coin.
As a result, the Solana-based $LLJEFFY surged 2,115%, hitting a market cap of nearly $105 million.
However, investors quickly realised that the deployer wallet was buying up the token despite Yu’s supposed death. It plummeted 86.8% in just one hour to a market cap of $13.8 million.
Claims of his death were bolstered by an obituary posted online by the San Francisco Chronicle via Legacy.com. It referred to him as “a visionary artist, technologist, and cultural force” but was later removed.
'Crack Head Dev' Smokes Drugs, Fakes Death, and Dreams of Making Millions With Meme Coins
Here’s how weird the world of meme coins on Solana has become. Meet Trevv, a young man from California, just 19 years of age, with no prior experience in crypto. (He asked us to withhold his full name.) Trevv’s a drug addict—mostly fentanyl, but also dabbles in coke, heroin, and other substances. He’s got a small following of 2,000 people on Instagram, where he mostly posts goofy videos of himself for attention. He’s now the latest livestreaming “meme coin dev” to have gone viral—his brief momen...
The San Francisco and San Mateo Coroner's Offices also told Decrypt that nobody with the surname Yu has died in the area since Friday, April 2.
Extreme stunts to pump meme coins are nothing new. Previous instances include a dev livestreaming his self-immolation and another faking an OD.
Meme coin platform Pump.fun eventually banned livestreaming after one token promo included a fake hanging.
Decrypt has contacted Jeffy Yu for comment.
Edited by Sebastian Sinclair
