Bitcoin exchange boss Autumn Radtke Commits Suicide | Hacker News Reader

Bitcoin exchange boss Autumn Radtke Commits Suicide

news.com.au

24 pointseplanit16 comments

Wait wait wait. It wasn't a Bitcoin exchange! As far as I can see on their website you can buy virtual currencies from Second Life and similar and pay in USD or Bitcoin. Calling it a Bitcoin exchange is a bit far fetched.

And I presume the story is reposted here over and over only because it is "Bitcoin" related.

I can't find anything Bitcoin related on her website...

https://firstmetaexchange.com/

It's possible that she accepted a bunch of payment in bitcoin and those coins were in MtGox. But I'm just guessing; no proof.

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SIDENOTE: The comment about her death is incredibly small at the top of the website... I'd expect it to be a bit more prominent.

The article is trying hard to link Bitcoin with this premature death. I suspect depression has a lot more to do with her death than Bitcoin, should this be officially ruled a suicide. If you're hurting, speak out and reach out to people (particularly a qualified professional).

For those interested in her previous work, this is her LinkedIn profile: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/autumn-radtke/6/21/183 Based on what I can see, we lost someone talented and passionate about business and technology.

First line of the article: "IT SEEMS controversial virtual currency bitcoin has claimed its first life."

It then goes on to list numerous other things she has done but doesn't link her death to those.

There are a number of things wrong with that assertion.

It doesn't prima facie seem to be bitcoin related.

People bought high and sold low on the various bitcoin bubbles. There were people who invested money they couldn't afford to lose who went on to lose it. If we were being heartless enough to be awarding a prize for the first bitcoin related death. It probably happened to some poor soul in 2011 and the world barely noticed.

Ross Ulbricht is alleged to have directly paid for someone to be killed.

Both of First Meta's sign-up and login forms are served over insecure HTTP instead of HTTPS: http://firstmetaexchange.com/home.

I wouldn't enter an email and password into any of those fields, especially since the site deals in money.

Strange, though, that their front-page is actually HTTPS: https://firstmeta.com/.

Let's start reporting it whenever a cab driver happens to commit suicide. Certainly something is wrong in that business, too.

Ok, outside the article trying to link her death to BitCoin...

...it is a tragedy to see a promising life lost. I continue to be concerned that in the tech/startup world we will keep seeing this happen until better support networks for entrepreneurs to find emotional help exist.

Any suicide is one suicide too many.

the government should have stepped in sooner to put an end to the mania around this bitcoin - look what stripe is doing for payment and money transfer... we need slow/steady progress for the masses, not trying to sell a new miracle currency like snake oil

a lot of ppl in tech are young, wide-eyed, early adopters, believe in the 0's and 1's like it's a religion... a lot of bitcoin holders that are losing money they can't afford on these and future fallouts from the experiment are learning the hard way, too hard probably for them to handle in some cases... a soft/delicate generation :-(

First Meta is NOT a "Bitcoin exchange". This is media propaganda.

This again?

Wasn't a similarly missleading article posted and removed from HN last night?

Deleted comment

I saw this headline earlier today on HN but the story was [dead]. I figured it was something completely speculative and not worth looking into further.

(For anyone asking: you can set showdead on in your account settings.)

"bitcoin exchange"

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7296008

Unfortunately, I knew this was coming with the MtGox failure. :-(

Last time Reddit had a suicide-watch I thought it was an over-reaction. This time though, people really need it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com