Mircea Popescu, an early adopter of the cryptocurrency Bitcoin died suddenly on Monday at age 41.
Popescu was known to be one of the biggest Bitcoin owners on the planet and was estimated to own around $2billion in the cryptocurrency, and it is unknown what will happen to the fortune.
Local news reports said he drowned off the coast of Costa Rica near Playa Hermosa at around 8.30am
Popescu, from Romania, was a major supporter of Bitcoin in its early years after its establishment in 2009, having established a so called Bitcoin securities exchange MPEx in 2012, according to the Independent.
There has so far been no word, however, on who has access to his digital assets, fueling unconfirmed rumors that the fortune could be gone.
Mircea Popescu, one of Bitcoin's earliest adopters died suddenly on Monday at 41. His fortune in the cryptocurrency was estimated to be around $2billion, the face of which is uncertain
'It looks like that with the deaths of Mircea Popescu and John McAfee a significant amount of $BTC might be lost forever,' Alexander Marder, research analyst at Crypto Briefing, tweeted Monday.
Software giant McAffee died in an apparent apparent suicide last week in a prison cell in Barcelona, and was also believed to have a large fortune in the cryptocurrency.
Popescu was also notorious for his crass online presence, which critics regarded as sexist and racist.
'Bitcoin is fate. It operates completely outside of any human agency. For all you know about bitcoin creator Nakamoto, bitcoin might as well have created itself,' he wrote in one of his posts.
Popescu, from Romania, was a polarizing figure in the cryptocurrency space, often expressing views online that critics regarded as sexist and racist
'Bitcoin can kill all your friends, and all the people you respect... It can poop in your drink and rape your pets... If lightning strikes where you sit, whether you feel a warm cosy sort of love or the most burning hatred imaginable is strictly irrelevant - electricity stays,'
In another of his essays, he outlined the roles he believed women were suited to in society.
One of them, he wrote, would be to eulogize men, Yahoo Finance reported.
Little else was reportedly known about him.
Pete Rizzo, editor of Bitcoin Magazine, noted Popescu was a polarizing figure, and said he was called 'The Father of Bitcoin Toxicity,' by some.
'Mircea will endure as one of #Bitcoin's most vilified figures and inarguably one of its greatest philosophers,' he wrote on Twitter.