The 22-year-old developer of Zerebro, who apparently committed suicide during a livestream on May 4, is actually alive, according to a San Francisco news outlet that claims they spoke to Yu outside his family home.
The San Francisco Standard reporter George Kelly claimed on May 8 that he briefly spoke with Yu outside of his family’s two-story home, where the crypto influencer refused to discuss the suicide allegations and whether he had financially benefited from it.
Instead, Yu reportedly said: “You can see the PTSD in my eyes, right?” before asking the reporter to leave.
He was reportedly wearing a T-shirt, shorts, flip-flops and wire-rimmed glasses, possibly similar to the ones he had on while appearing to shoot himself to death during the livestream.
The SFS didn’t share an image of Yu outside his family’s house.
Many initially believed that Yu’s suicide was legitimate after reports of the incident emerged on May 4. But several pieces of information that began circulating on X two days later led some to conclude his suicide attempt was faked.
One piece of evidence was an unverified letter purportedly sent by Yu to an investor confirming that he hadn’t died; another included transfers from several crypto wallets owned by Yu after the alleged incident and the removal of his obituary from the memorial site Legacy.com.
Wallets tied to Yu have moved $1.5M since the suicide incident
According to blockchain analytics firm Bubblemaps, wallets tied to Yu have offloaded around $1.5 million worth of the Zerebro (ZEREBRO) tokens since the suicide incident, strengthening the SFS’ report that Yu is still alive.
Some of those funds have been transferred to the same wallet address Yu used to create the so-called “Legacy Memecoin” — Legacoin (LLJEFFY) — Bubblemaps noted.
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Yu’s AI-powered, content-focused Zerebro platform burst onto the scene in late 2024, with the ZEREBRO token soaring to a near $660 million market cap on Jan. 3 before tanking below $20 million around three months later, CoinGecko data shows.
ZEREBRO currently boasts a $47.2 million valuation, while several LLJEFFY tokens have notched multimillion-dollar valuations across different blockchain networks.
Yu’s PTSD claims reflect a concerning industry trend of harassment, violence
The PTSD comment that Yu made to the SFS reporter appears to be related to the constant harassment, blackmail and threats that he talked about in his apparent letter sent to the Zerebro investor.
He claimed that with his house address publicly known, he’s been in constant fear of robbery and physical harm — an unfortunate trend that has escalated in the crypto space in recent months.
There have been more than 150 crypto-related physical attacks since 2014, according to a GitHub list tracked by Bitcoin cypherpunk Jameson Lopp.
Forty-six of those reported incidents have occurred over the last 12 months alone.
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