It looks set to be the debate of the century. The eccentric John McAfee, founder and former owner of eponymous anti-virus software company, McAfee, stated this Thursday that he wants to debate the chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Jay Clayton.
McAfee made the announcement on his Twitter account. The British-American businessman has spent the last several days engaged in a ‘meme war’ in which he has been spamming his followers with Bitcoin -related memes such as the one below.
One of the pictures from John McAfee's meme war
In the midst of the meme war, Clayton had an interview with American broadcaster CNBC. The interview was of note as Clayton stated that he thinks cryptocurrencies, except for bitcoin, are securities.
Don't mess with McAfee
McAfee, a libertarian and huge cryptocurrency advocate, issued a response to this statement that was, at least initially, fairly measured. He said only that he didn’t agree with Clayton and he wouldn’t be working on any new initial coin offerings (ICOs) in the near future.
This was followed up by a slightly more forceful tweet in which McAfee prayed for the SEC to prosecute firms that had launched ICOs prior to Clayton’s statement. “If they do,” McAfee said, “I will be the greatest thorn in the side of the SEC since the founding of our Constitution.”
After this, McAfee went all in. He said that he would “welcome the opportunity to RIP the SEC a new asshole” and that, if the regulator refused to debate him, they should “back the f*** off.”
Having returned briefly to posting memes, McAfee then encouraged his followers to email or call Clayton and the SEC to encourage the regulator to debate him. Whether or not McAfee’s efforts will come to fruition remains to be seen, but this author wishes him the best of luck.
The threats against the SEC, interspersed as they were with various memes, provide a brief snapshot into the brilliant mind of McAfee. In recent years he has run for president, been investigated in connection to a murder case in Belize, said he doesn’t use his own software as its “annoying” and suggested that George Jung, a former drug lord, will be writing his biography.
