Police ask for witnesses; suspect remains at large

San Francisco police said yesterday they are still hunting the killer of Bob Lee, the 43-year-old chief product officer of MobileCoin, creator of Cash App, and the former CTO of payments company Block (previously called Square).

Lee was found at about 2.35 a.m. on the 300 block of Main Street in San Francisco, near the entrance to the Oakland Bay Bridge, on April 4, after police responded to a report of a stabbing.

“Officers arrived on scene and located a 43-year-old adult male victim suffering from apparent stab wounds. Officers rendered aid and summoned medics to the scene. The victim was transported to a local hospital with life-threatening injuries. Despite efforts by first responders and medical personnel, the victim succumbed to his injuries,” the San Francisco Police Department said.

No arrests have been made and the police have made a call for witnesses and help from the public.

“This remains an active investigation,” police said.

Lee became the chief product officer at MobileCoin in 2021. The product was added as a beta test feature on the messaging app Signal in the UK. It allows users to send “digital cash” payments to each other in such a way that all information about the transaction is private and unseeable by Signal. The feature requires people to buy MobileCoin tokens to send a payment and cash it out in fiat to realize its value upon receipt. It was designed specifically for mobile phone and Signal users.

Lee created CashApp in 2013. The mobile payments app lets users send money to each other. It also offers a wallet and cold storage for Bitcoin, allowing users to buy, sell, and send Bitcoin via the Lightning network.

Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter and Block, said in a post on Nostr, “Heartbreaking.. Bob was instrumental to Square and Cash App.”

Bill Barhydt, CEO of mobile crypto wallet company Abra, said “Bob was a dad, the former CTO of Square where he created Cash App & CTO of Mobile Coin.  He was a generous decent human being who didn’t deserve to be killed,” in a post on Twitter.

Police asked anyone with information about the incident to call 1-415-575-4444.

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