You know John McAfee as the founder of McAfee Antivirus Software. He has recently re-emerged as a prominent crypto advocate. On Sunday, McAfee tweeted that he has decided to run for president in 2020 to “best serve the crypto community.” He noted that he would either run with the Libertarian Party or create his own.
If he follows through, this would mark McAfee’s second presidential run, after he lost his first bid in 2016 to former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson to be the candidate for the Libertarian Party.
As ABC recently noted, McAfee has gone through many transformations. He went from tech legend, to making headlines as a “person of interest” in a mysterious killing in Belize, to launching new tech companies, to running to become a presidential candidate, to living in rural Tennessee.
In spite of past refusals, I have decided to again run for POTUS in 2020. If asked again by the Libertarian party, I will run with them. If not, I will create my own party. I believe this will best serve the crypto community by providing the ultimate campaign platform for us.
— John McAfee (@officialmcafee) June 3, 2018
Most recently, he has been a staunch supporter of Bitcoin. He came to the cryptocurrency’s defense after it was criticized by J.P. Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon for being “a fraud.”
“You called bitcoin a fraud,” McAfee said in September. “I’m a Bitcoin miner. We create bitcoins. It costs over $1,000 per coin to create a bitcoin. What does it cost to create a U.S. Dollar? Which one is the fraud? Because it costs whatever the paper costs, but it costs me and other miners over $1,000 per coin. It’s called proof of work.”
Don't think that I have a chance of winning. I do not. But what truly changes America is not the president, but the process of creating one. If my following is sufficient I get to stand the world's largest stage and talk to the everyone, as I did last time, to tell the truth.
— John McAfee (@officialmcafee) June 4, 2018
One of his 827,000 Twitter followers responded to his tweet saying that Oprah would defeat him in a presidential race. McAfee said, “Almost anyone could. But that is not the point. The point is that I will be on the stage with whoever is picked.”
It seems that this is more of a cryptocurrency awareness play than any sort of serious presidential bid, but this wouldn’t be the first time that someone with relatively low chances of winning was able to mobilize the masses.