Not even prison can keep John McAfee from shilling crypto (2024)

John McAfee is in a Spanish prison awaiting possible extradition to the U.S. on charges of tax evasion, but that hasn't stopped the one-time cybersecurity expert from pumping some sketchy altcoin.

McAfee, known for his love of bath salts and allegedly being secretly paid to promote questionable cryptocurrencies to his unsuspecting acolytes, has long sung the praises of dubious investments. In a rambling Q&A-style statement tweeted Monday, the 75-year-old made clear that his fundamental nature remains unchanged.

That's right, even behind bars McAfee is trying to convince the world to invest in some random sh*tcoin.

After several paragraphs claiming the charges against him are politically motivated and the result of his principled stand against the Sixteenth Amendment to the U.S. constitution (that's income tax one), McAfee gets down to business. You see, he really wants you to know about the $GHOST stablecoin that you just have to believe is the next big thing.

"My only remaining project is $GHOST," writes McAfee. "When our private stablecoin is released, it will revolutionize crypto transactions."

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McAfee, of course, is no stranger to grand, cryptocurrency-adjacent claims. In early October the Securities and Exchange Commission accused the self-styled penile Nostradamus of hyping initial coin offerings in exchange for a share of the profits. Prison, it would seem, has not deterred the man.

"I am concentrating fully on $GHOST," he writes. "We will see very soon a new movement into using cryptocurrencies as transactions rather than as get rich quick schemes. This is why I developed the private $GHOST stablecoin."

Notably, McAfee has not always been so bullish on $GHOST. In a now-deleted tweet from August, McAfee claimed that "It will, without a doubt fail."

That all changed in October, when McAfee announced he was once again "controlling" the project. At the time of that announcement, he had already been arrested in Spain.

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An old, ERC-20 version of GHOST is still listed on CoinMarketCap. However, with a current valuation of around $0.33 — down from its June highs of $2.16 —there's nothing very stable about it.

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"Too many people are using crypto as a way to get rich quick rather than its original intent," writes McAfee in his jailhouse Q&A.

Indeed.