Information is spreading online that Jeffy Yu, co-founder of the AI Agent crypto project Zerebro, died following a livestreamed suicide on May 4.
Cryptoslate has been unable to verify whether the reports are accurate or a part of a darkly elaborate marketing campaign for a new memecoin.
The event was initially confirmed by an obituary published on Legacy.com, though the page has since been removed.
As of press time, no official statement has been issued by his family or project team, and the circumstances surrounding his death remain partly unverified.
The circumstances have caused rampant speculation online, with varying takes on the situation.
Zerebro founder
Yu, who allegedly passed at the age of 22, was a computer science prodigy who enrolled at Stanford University at 15 and rose to prominence after co-launching Zerebro in late 2023.
The project quickly gained traction within the crypto industry, blending AI agent infrastructure with the memecoin craze. At its peak, Zerebro reached an $800 million market cap and was positioned alongside other AI-themed tokens as part of a broader speculative trend.
Despite a temporary resurgence in value earlier this year, Zerebro had begun to lose momentum amid broader declines in AI token narratives. However, Yu remained publicly active, announcing new features, conducting user polls, and advocating for more structured information flows in AI-driven content creation.
On the day of the incident, Yu used Pump.fun’s livestreaming platform, a feature recently reinstated after prior controversies. Viewers reported witnessing a calm sequence culminating in the sound of a gunshot, after which the screen went dark.
Blockchain data showed subsequent activity from wallets associated with Yu, leading some community members to speculate that the livestream might have been staged or part of a performance.
Confirmation of the death appeared to arrive when an obituary for Yu was published on Legacy.com, identifying him as a technologist and builder. However, the obituary has since been taken offline, intensifying questions about the finality and nature of the event.
Legacoins
Hours before the broadcast, Yu published a post on Mirror outlining a conceptual framework for “Legacoins.” He called it a “dead man’s switch” that would be triggered by his death.
This proposed token model involved developers permanently locking their holdings upon death, removing them from speculative circulation and creating a floor of symbolic and cultural value.
The post aligned with earlier themes Yu had expressed through Zerebro’s roadmap, which emphasized long-term contribution over short-term trading. However, claims of addresses tied to him remaining active following the alleged suicide have left many in the community skeptical.
In the wake of the news, conversations across crypto forums and social platforms have turned toward the psychological toll of high-visibility development work in an unregulated, high-volatility environment.
Yu’s work at Zerebro was seen as a leading example of integrating consumer-facing agent infrastructure with blockchain principles, and his presence in the industry had marked a shift toward more philosophical interpretations of token design and utility.
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