John McAfee, known for causing explosive rallies in some of the coins he promoted, has announced he is breaking away with his persona of crypto presented. He will not be promoting coins, tokens, or startups in 2020, or lending his brand and image to crypto companies. McAfee recently tweeted:
https://twitter.com/officialmcafee/status/1205853824818257921
McAfee later explained his choice on having to redirect his energies to his presidential campaign.
https://twitter.com/officialmcafee/status/1206574790959620099
The McAfee effect was felt most strongly during the record run of 2017, when every altcoin boomed. But being chosen for the “McAfee Coin of the Day” meant a spike of 1,000% per day.
But in the end, the promotion played a bad joke on those coins. Projects like Verge (XVG) tanked quickly, taking away the gains just as fast. Since then, XVG has lost some of its appeal, and continued to exist as a sub-penny asset.
McAfee has been a fixture in the crypto space, as he continued with ICO promotions and lent his image to Bitcoin Private (BTCP) for a meme campaign. In the past, it became known the promotions had a price tag of $100,000, as McAfee and his team freely admitted their services were valuable and paid.
The McAfee team also supports a couple of decentralized exchanges with so far unrecorded volumes, and has issued coins with dubious performance, including a free token called “Epstein did not kill himself”. McAfee has earned his spot as one of the most flamboyant crypto proponents, but soon his narrative veered away from the technology, and into conspiracy territory.
In the past year, McAfee tweeted his adventures running from the law, including living on a boat and then appearing in European crypto events. In the meantime, he still supported his most prominent claim, that Bitcoin (BTC) would see $1 million prices in 2020. He still believes in the case for crypto assets as a tool for freedom.
“I believe that bitcoin will always have value, but as a currency only privacy coins are in fact practical for freeing you from the bonds of slavery imposed by our centralized currencies,” said McAfee in a recent Reddit AMA.
