MobileCoin exec Bob Lee stabbed to death in San Francisco attack

Bob Lee, founder of cryptocurrency MobileCoin and payments service Cash App, and former chief technology officer of Square has died after being stabbed in San Francisco.

At around 2:35 am local time, police responded to reports of an incident near the city’s Rincon Hill neighborhood.

Upon arriving at the scene, officers discovered that Lee had suffered multiple stab wounds. Medics attempted to treat the 43-year-old tech mogul’s injuries and moved him to a nearby hospital but he tragically succumbed to his injuries.  

In a statement, MobileCoin’s Chief Executive Officer Joshua Goldbard said, “Bob was a force of nature. He helped to birth Android and Cash App into our world. Moby was his dream: a privacy-protecting wallet for the 21st century. I will miss him every day.”

Lee had reportedly recently moved to Miami and was in San Francisco on business.

Twitter being Twitter, just hours after the attack, rumors speculating on the circumstances surrounding Lee’s death were already making the rounds.

These range from the as-yet-completely-unfounded theory that Lee was the target of a calculated hit due to his involvement with Binance and Cash App (both have been linked to various illegal activity) to the idea that current policy has turned San Francisco into some sort of lawless Wild West.

Other social media users have also flagged that, despite the outlandish nature of some of these theories, Lee’s death does give him an unenviable place on the list of crypto big players who have sadly passed away in mysterious circumstances.

These include:

• MakerDAO developer and crypto millionaire Nikolai Mushegian who drowned in Puerto Rico.
• Tiantian Kullander, the founder of Hong Kong-based digital asset company Amber Group who died suddenly in his sleep.
• Gerald Cotten, the QuadrigaCX founder who has been the subject of countless conspiracy theories since he passed away in India while on his honeymoon.