Word has just come in that John McAfee won’t be attending the ongoing Blockchain World Conference 2018 in Atlantic City, NJ. The unexpected development was confirmed by McAfee himself via social media.
Security Threat to McAfee and Attendees
Apparently, it was the organizers of the Blockchain World Conference who requested McAfee not to attend the conference. They cited security threat as the sole reason behind the cancellation of McAfee’s on-stage appearance.
They, however, assured that McAfee’s keynote speech scheduled on 11 AM (UTC -4), July 13, has not been canceled. Instead of physically attending the conference, the widely regarded “Bad boy of blockchain” will address the audience via live stream.
The official event page on Twitter posted earlier this morning (local time):
Due to a number of credible death threats against McAfee, The BWC team has been forced to request that @officialmcafee live stream his keynote speech at 11am EST, from a secret secure location. Mr. McAfee’s globally impacting message will not be silenced by the efforts of a few! pic.twitter.com/lNfOEiCirP
— Blockchain World Conference (@BWCevent) July 13, 2018
McAfee, a British-American computer programmer and the founder of the software company McAfee Associates, has confirmed that he will be live streaming at the scheduled time from an undisclosed location.
I have been asked by the Blockchain World Conference organizers to cancel my live appearance due to fears of audience, and my own, safety. I will be live streaming from an undisclosed location at 11:00 AM. https://t.co/hUhoKEptEI
— John McAfee (@officialmcafee) July 13, 2018
Death Threats
Interestingly, this is not the first-of-its-kind threat to McAfee, an eccentric entrepreneur who doesn’t usually shy away from expressing his views on pretty much anything under the sun, including politics, the state of the economy, and of course, cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology.
In 2012, his former girlfriend “Francesca,” revealed that McAfee was “frightened for his life.”
She told CNN:
“He’s in constant fear, paranoid. […] I would say it’s because of what he has been through. … He thinks people are always after him, which they really are right now.”
Three years later, the software entrepreneur told the Guardian in an interview that “bad people” were still after him.
He claimed earlier this February that he was receiving “over 200 death threats per week.”
