In brief
- Jeffy Yu, 22, was found alive at his parents’ home days after a viral video appeared to show his suicide.
- His apparent death triggered a 2,000% rally in his Solana-based meme coin $LLJEFFY, which later crashed.
- Authorities confirmed no death matching Yu’s profile had occurred; the video and obituary were later removed.
Zerebro creator Jeffy Yu, who supposedly committed suicide last weekend, has been found alive by a reporter at his mom and dad’s house.
The 22-year-old dev was discovered Wednesday by the San Francisco Standard, which found him padding around in flip-flops. He was visibly shocked at being found.
Yu claimed he had been “doxxed” and “harassed,” and lamented that his poor parents would now have to move house.
“You can see the PTSD in my eyes, right?” he said, before telling the reporter to leave.
Yu’s alleged death sparked a meme coin trading frenzy. On Sunday, users on X reported watching a now-deleted video of Jeffy Yu smoking a cigarette before shooting himself in the head with a gun.
A scheduled blog post was released after the video surfaced, featuring Yu’s philosophical musings on fame and fortune, and describing his final act as a “legacoin,” or legacy meme coin.
As a result, the Solana-based $LLJEFFY surged 2,115%, hitting a market cap of nearly $105 million.
However, investors quickly realised that the deployer wallet was buying up the token despite Yu’s supposed death. It plummeted 86.8% in just one hour to a market cap of $13.8 million.
Claims of his death were bolstered by an obituary posted online by the San Francisco Chronicle via Legacy.com. It referred to him as “a visionary artist, technologist, and cultural force” but was later removed.
The San Francisco and San Mateo Coroner’s Offices also told Decrypt that nobody with the surname Yu has died in the area since Friday, April 2.
Extreme stunts to pump meme coins are nothing new. Previous instances include a dev livestreaming his self-immolation and another faking an OD.
Meme coin platform Pump.fun eventually banned livestreaming after one token promo included a fake hanging.
Decrypt has contacted Jeffy Yu for comment.
Edited by Sebastian Sinclair
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