In 2021, the market cap of cryptocurrencies skyrocketed 286% year over year, uplifting a $2.17 trillion industry into the stratosphere. But, with this vast creation of wealth comes the explosion of peculiar tales throughout the sector. From the suspicious death of multiple crypto-evangelists and crypto scams involving hacked Twitter accounts of heads of states to much-promoted celebrity NFT drops that bombed at the auction, 2021 was truly a wild year for the cryptocurrency cyberspace. Without further ado, let’s look at the top strangest stories that have captivated blockchain enthusiasts this year.

No 1. The death of John McAfee

On June 23, John McAfee, crypto-evangelist and namesake founder of antivirus software company McAfee, was found dead in a Spanish jail cell in an apparent suicide by hanging. The United States, one of the few countries that impose a taxation-by-citizenship regime — that is, Americans are taxed on their worldwide income each year regardless of their country of residence — had been seeking McAfee’s extradition for failing to file his income tax returns from 2014 to 2018 and allegedly not reporting income for his crypto projects. McAfee was arrested in Spain pending U.S. tax evasion charges. Back in 2018, McAfee was allegedly charging as much as $105,000 per Tweet to promote initial coin offerings (ICOs) on social media.

In another Tweet two years prior, McAfee stated: “If I suicide myself, I didn’t. I was whacked,” leading to conspiracy theories that the businessman’s death may have resulted from an orchestrated attack. McAfee is…