Fears Bitcoin billionaire's $2.7b fortune 'lost forever' after shock death

Mystery shrouds the death of a Bitcoin billionaire with fears he has drowned.

Romanian billionaire Mircea Popescu, 41, is believed to have drowned after he went for a swim at Playa Hermosa in Costa Rica on June 23 about 8.30am (local time), Costa Rican news site Teletica reported.

Mr Popescu was said to have been swept away by a current.

The 41-year-old is estimated to have about A$2.7 billion in Bitcoin which could be inaccessible unless he created a way for someone to access his digital wallets. If there is no access to them, the tokens could be lost forever.

Alexander Mardar, a crypto analyst, tweeted Mr Popescu’s death could mean “a significant amount of $BTC (Bitcoin) might be lost forever”.

Mr Popescu was one of the earliest adopters of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency, but his fortune didn’t come without controversy.

• YouTube creator Alex 'Sir Kipsta' Dragomir dies aged 17

• Firefighters rescue TikTok star after fetish video fail

• Woman's scary revelation on TikTok after finding hair in shower

• OnlyFans model suffers heart attack after trying TikTok trend

He was labelled by crypto news site Bitcoin.com as the father of “Bitcoin Toxicity”.

The Romanian regularly blogged with some criticising his posts as racist and sexist.

Others viewed him as a visionary, someone who pushed cryptocurrency forward and a “Bitcoin Evangelist”, according to news site HITC.

Mr Popescu at one stage threatened to dump a million bitcoins in the market if changes were made to Bitcoin block sizes.

He also founded bitcoin exchange Mpex in 2012 which was subject to a US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigation.

It is not clear what the outcome was for Mr Popescu in the investigation.

Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@yahoonews.com.

You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and download the Yahoo News app from the App Store or Google Play.