‘Irresponsible tweets’ land John McAfee in hot water with Skycoin

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It is extremely hard to overstate just how controversial that cybersecurity John McAfee can be, given the fact that he has previously been accused of murder and is currently on the run from U.S. authorities. It appears as though his comments have now strained his relationship with Skycoin to the point where the project has severed ties with him, as well.

For those who might not remember, McAfee began actively promoting Skycoin late last year in various tweets. On November 7, 2018, McAfee even got a Skycoin tattoo in a tweet that went viral in the cryptocurrency community. This is significant considering the fact that McAfee is one of the largest cryptocurrency influencers in the space, boasting 899,000 Twitter followers. Skycoin markets itself as integral to the future of a new decentralized Internet.

The partnership intensified after McAfee met the Skycoin team at the Malta Blockchain Summit. Malta prides itself as “The Blockchain Island,” and is arguably the country in the world that is embracing blockchain and cryptocurrency more than any others right now. The prime minister of Malta even spoke about how cryptocurrency is the “future of money” at the U.N. General Assembly.

This week, however, McAfee took to Twitter to state that he would no longer be promoting Skycoin. While he refused to publicly elaborate on the reason why, he urged those curious to “DM me if you want to know the reasons.” When questioned by a user, he elaborated that he would keep the tattoo as a reminder that he “still gets scammed by unscrupulous people with pie in the sky” plans. He even stated that the situation “almost drove him to violence.”

Skycoin has responded on Twitter that it was actually his comments about “whale f–king” that actually led to the project being forced to sever ties with the cryptocurrency influencer. Another anonymous individual purporting to be associated with the Skycoin project stated that McAfee’s drug use also played a role. Skycoin is referring to tweets that McAfee made on December 31, 2018, where he claimed that he tried to join a “whale-f**king” club.