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Author Topic: First Meta CEO found dead suspected of suicide  (Read 6394 times)
freedombit
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May 11, 2014, 05:33:36 AM
 #41

http://nypost.com/2014/03/05/bitcoin-firm-ceo-found-dead-in-suspected-suicide/

It appears bitcoin’s recent turmoil has claimed its first life.

Autumn Ratke a 28-year-old American CEO of bitcoin exchange firm First Meta was found dead in her Singapore apartment on Feb. 28.

Local media are calling it a suicide, but Singapore officials are waiting for toxicology test results.
Ratke formerly worked with Apple and other Silicon Valley tech firms on developing digital payment systems.

Ratke’s death brings the number of questionable financial sector deaths this year to eight.
On Feb. 18 a 33-year-old JPMorgan finance pro leaped to his death the roof of the JPMorgan’s 30-story Hong Kong office tower.
Modal Trigger

Photo: Facebook

Li Junjie’s suicide marked the third mysterious death of a JPMorgan banker. So far, there is no other known link between any of the deaths.

Gabriel Magee, 39, a vice president with the JPMorgan’s corporate and investment bank technology arm in the UK, also jumped to his death from the roof of the bank’s 33-story Canary Wharf tower in London on Jan. 28.

On Feb. 3, Ryan Henry Crane, 37, a JPM executive director who worked in New York, was found dead inside his Stamford, Conn., home.

A cause of death in Crane’s case has not be determined until a toxicology report is complete, according to a spokesperson for the Stamford detectives division.

The report is expected within two weeks.

Two other bankers have also taken their lives outside of JPMorgan.

On Jan. 31, Mike Dueker — the chief economist at Russell Investments and former Federal Reserve bank economist — was found dead at the side of a road that leads to the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in Washington state, according to the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department. He was 50.

On Jan. 26, William Broeksmit, 58, a former senior risk manager at Deutsche Bank, was found hanging in a house in South Kensington, according to London police.


Amazing how this only got noticed on BitcoinTalk a week later, in spite of GoCoin sharing the same office as First Meta. I still say Mark Karpeles' cat knows something.

To see the stories from the Cat's Eye...
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May 11, 2014, 08:53:27 AM
 #42

Apologies for the cross-post.



Bruno,


I have to say that I enjoy your posts and threads. You certainly do comprehensive work in finding out information. While I agree on the concept of "innocent until proven guilty", there are numerous signs in this whole scandal that can sway someone to think they did something wrong, such as the court settlements and fleeing to Spain. And for the masses that state they dont care, they should. Because it is now a situation of guilty by association.


I reposted this on Litecointalk. While I am very excited to see Bobby on the board, I was personally disappointed to see Brock on there.



Also as a side note I am disappointed in the BTC foundation as a whole. I do quite a bit of work for the Litecoin Association between education and charities and such (more of grassroots activities), but I honestly don't see the level of effort from the Bitcoin foundation. The sad part is that these are the folks that represent not only Bitcoin, but the crypto-currencies ecosystem as a whole.


Good luck to you, and know that you have my personal support in this. We need to weed out the scammers, cheaters, and criminals from our communities, and this is (allegedly  Roll Eyes) one of those situations.

Thanks, bud.

To be clear, I have no problem with BP's sexual preference, whether he is or is not... Furthermore, I had no issues with him having his hands in a myriad of Bitcoin-based ventures, small or large, especially with his gift of gab to further the cause. He could have done well financially, et al. but opted to go über-big too fast, thus putting himself, along with his concerns under the microscope. Sadly, for him, because in change of events, it'll get harder and harder for him to garner VC in the future due to the baggage he carries unless he discovers some creative way to rid it, for true VCs don't want to be connected with a pædo- since they have to answer to their investor base.

Brock was given an opportunity to pull from the race at TBF, but opted to stay in, only thinking about himself even though his past became forefront, not considering how his decision would effect Bitcoin. Since that relevancy wasn't taken into consideration of the further awareness of Bitcoin, it's damn safe to say that his other actions, of which we may or may not be privileged to, could be just as damning, if not worst, hence the pulling out the microscopes (plural, for trust me, I'm not the only one conducting a colonoscopy here).

We're already seeing the backlash of his decision to stay in the race, then win a TBF board seat - people are resigning from The Bitcoin Foundation. If you listen closely, you may hear $ & BTC being shuffled away from TBF and BP due to his inaction. But, if the sound isn't loud enough, perhaps zooming in with my colonoscope will better the din as I present info on one of DEN's principals' darling Bitcoin concerns.




Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't three of those names part or Save Gox Now At All Cost Otherwise Nobody Is Going To Get Shit . cOm?




Interview with Steve Beauregard CEO of GoCoin, on Bitcoin and Starting Up in Singapore: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElKEGGOcFbU#t=713



Comments of the video above, below:



The interview between Steve Beauregard of GoCoin and David Moskowitz of Coin Republic took place in front of a restaurant. The restaurant is located on Everton Road in Singapore, shown here via Google Maps:



The same building is seen here in the following news article: http://www.newsterm.com/tag/singapore-police-probe-unnatural-death-of-american-ceo-of-bitcoin-trader/



During the interview, Steven apologizes to David for not being able to order and pay for lunch via Bitcoin because the owner, the only person able to conduct the transaction with his smartphone, was outta pocket.

One would think that Steven, being a pretty smart guy and all. would have made prior arrangements with the restaurant owner so that such wouldn't have been the case. How could he have done that, you ask? Well, normally, that would be a fair question, but when you take into consideration that Steven lives directly above the restaurant since he first arrived in Singapore, I say the task would have been fairly simple, especially since it's all a dog-and-pony show to begin with. Steven knew that. David knew that. I knew it when I first viewed the video. Most others did as well. And, if you didn't, you know now.

But, no real harm, for that's how the game is played, so let's move on, but not too far, for we're not quite done with this Eventon Road address that has a nice restaurant, a nice pad on the second floor, and an office or two. In fact, it has two, for both First Meta and GoCoin share the same office. He had to live there, for GoCoin was still on a tight budget, just then obtaining its first round of VC funding as mentioned in the video.

If you're wondering who owns that First Meta entity, wonder no more, for I'm about to inform you - again: Autum Radtke (RIP).

Ms Autumn Radtke shared her work troubles during lunch with a business partner on Feb 25.

Early the next day, the 28-year-old chief executive of Singapore virtual currency exchange First Meta was found dead on the roof of a ground-floor rubbish collection point at a Cantonment Close Housing Board block.

"She was clearly stressed," said Mr Steve Beauregard, who had lunch with her. "She talked about... challenges with the business and I was trying to help her address some of her issues."

He had rented a room in her office-home at nearby Everton Road.

News of her death was reported in The Wall Street Journal on February 27 but went global on Wednesday after several overseas publications suggested that her death, which they called an apparent suicide, was linked to troubles with the digital currency bitcoin.

Last November, its value first crossed the US$1,000 (S$1,270) mark. But one of the world's largest bitcoin exchanges, Mt.Gox, collapsed late last month, causing bitcoin values to fall by 20 per cent.

But Mr Beauregard and friends told The Straits Times they did not think this was linked to Ms Radtke's death. Police have classified it as an unnatural death.

Ms Radtke, an American, had told The Straits Times in January that First Meta was not a bitcoin exchange, although it accepted bitcoins as payment for virtual currencies like those used in some games.

Mr Beauregard founded Singapore bitcoin payment platform GoCoin, which helps First Meta.

Mr Wayne Soh, business development manager at Plug and Play Singapore, a technology incubator that invested $500,000 with the National Research Foundation in First Meta in 2012, said Ms Radtke seemed increasingly stressed about the firm's business.

"We've always told her business is business and she shouldn't take it personally," he said. First Meta's revenue grew 20 to 30 per cent from 2012 to last year, he added. "She was saying she missed home. She's been in Singapore for the past two years."

He said she returned to the United States at least two to three times a year.

Ms Radtke joined First Meta in January 2012 as chief executive. Friends said she was a helpful and smart woman who had a positive impact on them.

Police said on Thursday that initial investigations suggested no suspected foul play. Toxicology tests are being carried out to determine her cause of death.


So, where was her body found, you ask?

http://www.jsonline.com/business/singapore-police-investigate-death-of-bitcoin-mogul-from-milwaukee-area-b99219682z1-248744511.html

Quote
Radtke was found lying motionless outside an apartment tower, the spokesman said. The building is not far from her home and office in a historic district of Singapore.

Quote
Friends and colleagues said Radtke was wrestling with professional and personal pressures, including running a start-up that was struggling to gain traction.

"She had a phenomenal network of highly successful people around her, and here she is running this little exchange and it just isn't taking off in the way anybody had hoped," Steve Beauregard, CEO and founder of GoCoin, a start-up that provided bitcoin-related services to First Meta, told Reuters.

Beauregard rented a room in Radtke's large Singapore home/office and was among the last people to see her alive.

Steven and Autumn lived together. Come morning of Feb. 26, 2014, Autumn woke up, walked two blocks, went up to the 25th floor of a high-rise building, looked down and said to herself, "Landing on that garbage dump is a great idea!" Then she jumped, with her body discovered around 7 AM local time. It was a Wednesday.

Quote
Douglas Abrams, director of First Meta, denied the company was struggling or up for sale, and said Radtke "did a great job as CEO." But he said selling the company always remained an option and there had been plans to save money by moving out of its current office space.

That last quote is extremely odd, considering how much cheaper rent would be saved when it was housing two people and two entities, both and both flush with VC capital of various degrees.

Quote
Last month she linked to an article on entrepreneurs suffering depression, commenting above the link: "everything has its price."

That's a good segue to touch upon the VC GoCoin received in January, 2014.

GoCoin received $500,000 USD, and what did they get and do with the money? First, they got 1,000+ views on one YouTube video uploaded last September, along with its 5 comments shown above. I suggest you review those comments to see what they consist of, along with the sources. BTW, that's the highest view count of any GoCoin video on YouTube.

Second, $25,000 USD was doled out to...wait for it...The Bitcoin Foundation for its Gold Membership account. (for those jacking-off, apologies for having it now go limp)

Third, they get 1,551 followers on their Twitter account: https://twitter.com/GoCoin.

Fourth, they get 419 Likes on their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/GoCoiner.

Fifth, they get 7 followers and 2,188 views on their Google+ account: https://plus.google.com/101441622651405485569/about

<I see you're getting nice and hard, or wet, if such is the case, but sadly if you don't bust a nut soon, you're about to lose it again.>

If you viewed the video GoCoin interview I linked above, you may recall Steven mentioning about a dozen customers they had during Beta with their first round of VC. The following are eight of those customers:



Since Brock Pierce help founded KnC Miner, I'm curious as to how much of GoCoin's VC they got to pay the $100,000 USD for...

https://bitcoinfoundation.org/2014/04/30/kncminer-joins-bitcoin-foundation-at-platinum-level/

Quote
In five short years, Bitcoin mining has inspired cutting edge innovation and breathed new life into the silicon industry. Leading the pack is our newest Platinum member, KnCMiner.

Currently, it's TBF's only Platinum Member

I believe it's safe to say that Brock Pierce got at least two votes, one from KnC, above, and GoCoin, below.

http://67.55.97.103/gocoin-endorses-brock-pierce-for-bitcoin-foundation-industry-board-seat/

Quote
It is without hesitation that the entire GoCoin team gives 100% of our support in endorsing Brock Pierce for a Bitcoin Foundation Industry Board Seat.

Playsino hasn't been active since March of last year, so I don't see who the hell is using their services today: https://www.facebook.com/PLAYSINO

GetThis hasn't been active on their Facebook page since February: https://www.facebook.com/getthis. It only has 1,610 followers on their semi-active Twitter account.

LuxeYard also dead since the end of last year.

Skytours https://angel.co/skytours  has 1 Like on their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Skytours-Online-Inc/262042743929442

EO Products (now I can't get that EI EI O song outta my head) https://angel.co/eo-products:

Quote
This is a community-generated profile · If you would like to claim it, please log in

Damn, I want to claim it so badly, but it may be outta my budget. Anybody interested in a group-buy?

Boys and Girls Clubs of Santa Monica (you gotta me fuckin' kiddin' me!) https://angel.co/boys-and-girls-clubs-of-santa-monica

http://www.smbgc.org/2013/12/03/6679/

Quote
Santa Monica, Calif. — Dec. 3, 2013 — GoCoin, a leading payment platform for the Bitcoin economy, today announced it is participating in Giving Tuesday by asking the Bitcoin community to contribute to its #GO4Good campaign and raise money for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Santa Monica (BGCSM).

Let me know if you can find out how one can contribute to BGCSM via Bitcoin today: http://www.smbgc.org/?s=bitcoin

First Meta https://www.facebook.com/FirstMetaExchange/likes



12 Likes in the course of a week is what you, too, can get with a $500,000 USD VC. My bad! I just noticed that they'll earn that back and then some with their 18-24 year old customer base, being that they're probably mostly white males living in their parent's...

KnC Miner, saving GoCoin's money maker for last. They're setting pretty mining away with their 7,000+ bitcoin mining rig pharm in some helicopter hanger next door to Facebook's data center in northern Sweden. If only they had an exchange to unload all them bitcoins they mine. Any suggestions?



Such a pretty girl that's no longer with us.

But, at least she had the pleasure of enjoying Brock Pierce's company back in 2009.

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