John McAfee recently raised his aging arms again, declaring his candidacy for the 2020 US presidential election. From birth, the 73-year-old man has spent his life in war, school bullying, drug abuse, promiscuity, fleeing around the world, and standing for the messy digital currency.
As a teenager, he earned a Ph.D. in mathematics and became a NASA space researcher. When the Internet was just born, he founded an anti-virus software company with his own name, and the industry called him the "Godfather" of anti-virus software. But he also fled the world because he was accused of murdering his neighbor.
While fleeing to Guatemala on "homicide charges," he survived with bitcoin, taking the stage in the cluttered world of digital currencies.
At 73, McAfee even claimed to be running for the US presidency for the safety of the Bitcoin and blockchain world.
"Anyone who is curious about my campaign video tonight can see that we are 'Made from the Mold' campaign HQ staff," McAfee tweeted on Dec. The 2020 US presidential campaign is busy.
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1 The crystallization of love between American soldiers and British girls
There is a scene in the movie "Pearl Harbor". In a speeding wartime train, the female nurse Evelyn of the British Navy sweetly described to her companions the scene when she first met the American pilot Leif four weeks ago. They fell in love at first sight in the flames of war.
John McAfee's father was also an American soldier who fell in love with a British girl during World War II. John McAfee was born in England on September 18, 1945, six days after the end of World War II.
Later, the McAfee family moved from the United Kingdom to Salem, Virginia, a city famous for singing patriotic songs and holding the "American Citizen" flag during World War II.
Salem people have a strong and warm character. However, the old McAfee, who has gone through the years of World War II, cannot get rid of the torture of post-traumatic stress disorder, drinking alcohol and domestic violence all the year round. At the age of 15, McAfee's father shot himself.
Despite his unfortunate childhood, this did not affect McAfee's ability to become a business genius and a super academic. During college, McAfee not only earned living expenses by selling magazines, but also successfully obtained a Ph.D. from Louisiana State University. At the same time, McAfee also inherited his father's drinking habits and was expelled for having sex with girls. Later, McAfee lost his coding job at Britos University for buying marijuana.
McAfee earned a Ph.D. in mathematics from Roanoke College in 1967 and joined NASA's Space Research Institute the following year. In 1978, McAfee joined Computer Sciences Corporation as a software consultant.
In the 1980s, the Internet was born. Robert Tappan Morris, known as a computer genius, brought the computer virus "Morris Worm" into the early Internet world.
Around the same time, McAfee, who was working on speech recognition technology at the Lockheed Corporation, stumbled across a piece of virus code that could replicate itself on any computer floppy disk. This code aroused McAfee's interest. In his words: "I was fascinated by this virus, which I had never heard of in the field of computer technology." McAfee set out to develop anti-virus software.
For more than two decades in McAfee's adult life, his psychedelic pursuit of madness and the trajectory of the early Internet have become entangled. In addition to holding a bottle of Scotch whiskey that was almost drunk, he continued to smoke marijuana and cocaine for stimulation. DMT (a strong hallucinogen) almost killed him, and his wife left him.
In 1987, McAfee formally established an antivirus software company named after himself in Santa Clara, McAfee Associates. Five years later, McAfee Associates goes public on Nasdaq.
According to "Fortune" reports, in the next five years, McAfee Associates' antivirus software accounted for half of the antivirus software market. McAfee became famous in the first battle and was dubbed the godfather of antivirus software.
In 1994, two years after McAfee Associates went public on Nasdaq, McAfee made hundreds of millions of dollars by selling his personal shares in the company, and then invested the wealth in real estate and stocks. After the bursting of the Internet bubble in the United States, US stocks and real estate continued to rise. But by the end of 1997, the financial crisis swept through East Asia. The following year, the American investment bank Lehman Brothers was hit by thunder, and McAfee's net assets also shrank to 4 million US dollars.
"During the recession, many stockholders were also forced to live off their reserves." Again, McAfee could not escape the scenario Irving Fisher described 60 years ago. "Ah! My money has disappeared!" Surprised, McAfee had to cut down his personal living expenses.
Over a three-year period from 2010 to 2014, McAfee launched two different companies: QuorumEx and Future Tense Central.
The former produces all-natural antibiotics, and the latter produces a computer security network appliance called D-Central. At the same time, McAfee also launched a smartphone application Cognizant (later renamed DCentral 1) to protect user privacy.
During this period, McAfee was accused of shooting his neighbors, fled to Guatemala to avoid the pursuit of the US police, and lived a savage life like Tarzan. McAfee, the software company he once founded, was also acquired by Intel in 2010.
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2 From antivirus godfather to ICO king
In May 2016, McAfee became Chief Executive Officer of MGT. At this time, McAfee believes that anti-virus software will die, and preventing hackers from invading is the new way to protect computers.
So McAfee converted the video company into a cybersecurity company and started a bitcoin mining business. In July 2017, McAfee predicted on Twitter, "In the next three years, your bitcoin will rise to $500,000. If not, I will eat JJ live on national TV."
McAfee, who resigned from MGT outright in early 2018 under pressure from high-level opponents at the company, also wanted to devote all his time to cryptocurrencies.
During this period, McAfee completed the role change from "King of Antivirus" to "King of ICO". Although the tweets he posted last year for the ICO project platform are no longer available, some screenshots of those tweets can still be found online. It is rumored that as long as the name of a coin appears in his Twitter, the coin will skyrocket immediately.
In fact, this old man, who looks like a middle-aged uncle, has sent an average of 3 to 10 tweets a day for at least a year, most of which involve views on digital currency, blockchain and ICO .
Perhaps, the decentralized nature of Bitcoin is in line with the "liberalism" advocated by McAfee, which makes this anti-virus godfather so firmly believe in the future of cryptocurrency. He talked about the relationship between blockchain and freedom more than once:
1. You are nothing without freedom, and the blockchain will make you free.
2. What do you think is "unlicensed"? It is the basis of blockchain. We're doing the first truly free thing humans have ever done...
3. What are the reasons why Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are regulated by the US government? The information stored on the blockchain, many people want to know, everyone can read...
"Without freedom, you're nothing, you're a puppet being manipulated," McAfee said in an interview.
Compared with other bitcoin believers, the Twitter-loving McAfee has a somewhat unique way of preaching the blockchain.
“Let me reiterate: I have no interest in being president. In 2016, I ran for President of the United States, and I believe, I changed the face of cybersecurity. In 2020, I hope to change the face of blockchain and cybersecurity. Better. That's all," he tweeted once.
Running for president on the grounds of evangelizing blockchain might be crazy, but it's not surprising. McAfee formed a liberal party known as the "Network Party" when he ran for the previous US president, but lost the 2016 election to opponents Gary Johnson and Austin Peterson .
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3 The ambition of the multifaceted "president"
Whether past or present, McAfee has always been a controversial topic figure. Belize Prime Minister Dean Barrow, who has dealt with McAfee, once said: "McAfee is very paranoid, even crazy."
Crazy, paranoid, boozy, druggy, these words are McAfee's A side, while determination, humility, cunning, and wit are his B side.
The talkative McAfee has more than 800,000 followers on Twitter, and every piece of content he pushes has dozens to nearly a hundred comments. In addition to criticizing the U.S. regulatory policy on digital currencies, he rarely uses Twitter to insult people. On the contrary, he will agree with the comments of netizens.
When McAfee learned that Overstock founder and CEO Patrick Byrne was exiting the retail business to focus on blockchain, he said: “The CEO of Overstock just noticed the unstoppable growth of Crypto and the blockchain around him. , since he's not stupid, he jumped on board, and soon, everyone will have to. The tide is changing kids, hold on for the upcoming journey of life."
On December 8, John McAfee forwarded a report related to Binance, "In the future, Binance will develop a public chain called Binance Chain to achieve ICO functions similar to Ethereum. I hope this new The plan can be adopted globally and realize the vision of digital currency.” When McAfee saw this sentence of Zhao Changpeng, McAfee re-commented:
"This is a criterion for measuring how popular Chinese culture is in the world half a century later. We measure long-term strategies in units of years, and the Chinese measure them in units of generations. When something new comes out, they will not resist, they will adopt it."
In Twitter, such serious comments only account for a part of his text, and more text belongs to witty and mocking tone.
Prior to this, Wu Jihan and "Aoben Cong" started a computing power war because of the BCH fork, and McAfee did not forget to "catch" a wave of hot spots: "The boss of CoinsBank just sent me a picture of Wu Jihan and Winklein. A photo of the Worth twins. I'm not short, the twins are nine feet tall, and what strikes me is the contrast between me and Jihan. It's hard to believe he's a close friend of mine."
McAfee is good at using Twitter marketing. There is a saying circulating on the Internet: As long as McAfee promotes a currency on Twitter, the currency will skyrocket. However, due to the supervision of ICO projects by the US Securities Regulatory Commission, this "walking billboard" has rarely become a platform for ICO projects.
Despite the passage of time, McAfee has maintained his tough-guy image. Now, it is not so common to see McAfee’s negative reports. Sunglasses, alcohol and tobacco, and two pet dogs are still part of the life of the tough guy “uncle”. Twitter and blockchain are another part of life.
Half a month ago, McAfee tweeted, "This is Loggiaonfire, the person in charge of my campaign for the presidency, he is very smart, efficient, creative, and a little evil at the same time, you will never guess What is his next plan, I can recommend you to be his volunteers, but I am not sure how he will reply to you, he may ignore you, or even be very polite to you."
On December 9th, McAfee announced his presidential campaign team in a video on Twitter. He said that anyone who is curious about my campaign video tonight can see that we are"Made from the Mold"campaign headquarters staff.
(I am the author Wu Yan, you can add WeChat BIG-BYE for blockchain project reporting/communication, please note the company, title and name)
