For a guy whose entire crypto-related social media presence consists of 22 Tweets and who looks like a member of the band Kraftwerk circa 1981, Mr. Tomas Stasiulevicius might not appear to be someone eligible for the title of “Crypto Badass of the Month” for May of 2018.
But outward appearances do not a “Crypto Badass” make. And considering what Mr. Stasiulevicius was willing to do not just on behalf of his team but on behalf of the crypto community as a whole earlier this month, we can’t think of anyone who deserves the title as much as he does.
If you’ve never heard of Stasiulevicius, that’s okay. We never heard of him either, until we read all about his exploits in badassery in a CCN article published on May 18, 2018, entitled John McAfee-Endorsed ICO Apologizes For Plagiarizing Content From Blockchain Taxi Platform.
Since that article does a top-notch job of explaining what happened, we’ll just provide you with the relevant snippets:
Tomas Stasiulevicius is a team member of A2B Taxi Token, a self-described “Revolutionary taxi platform” launching an ICO.
John McAfee is an old, self-important fat guy and self-described ICO shill who gets paid $500,000-per-tweet.
On May 17, 2018, McAfee tweeted the following:
I am advising and supporting the pink Taxi ICO - https://t.co/bH2by8US6l - created in response to the massive increase in sexual assaults on women, especially in Muslim countries. They currently operate in 50 cities, hiring only women drivers trained to support womens' safety. pic.twitter.com/Gs7mnpOs99
— John McAfee () May 17, 2018
In turns out that the aforementioned Pink Taxi had effectively lifted all of A2Bs marketing materials from its website and basically just made them “pinker.”
Perturbed by this obvious scam (as well as the fact that McAfee had just boasted about being paid $500,000 to promote it), Mr. Stasiulevicius tweeted thusly:
@ofiIciaImcafee why promote someone who bluntly steals someones else work?
— Tomas Stasiulevicius (@TStasiulevicius) May 17, 2018
To which McAfee replied:
What work??? I am unaware of a single city in which you are operating taxis. Your Twitter account only has produced 4 tweets, half of them to me. You are a scammer my friend. I strongly suggest you drop this, unless you would like my FULL attention?
— John McAfee (
Now, we don’t know about anyone else, but the thought of John McAfee giving us his FULL attention creeps us the fuck out. We would have probably deleted our Twitter account and tried to disappear into the shadows.
But not Mr. Stasiulevicius. No, sir. He wasn’t about to let some multi-millionaire crypto celebrity with over 800,000 followers on Twitter and over 15,000 Tweets push him around, so he shot back:
A2B taxi token team members Sercan and Tomas. Youtube account - pink taxi token. Beware of this pink scam.
— Tomas Stasiulevicius (@TStasiulevicius) May 17, 2018
When all the dust settled, it wasn’t the guy with a few dozen followers and only 4 tweets who turned out to be the scammer. It was the guy with over 800,000 followers and 15,700 tweets (who’s apparently getting paid $500,000 for them).
One of the biggest problems we’ve seen in the crypto/blockchain space is that nobody appears willing to stand up and call out the bad actors. Presumably that’s because there’s too much money to be made if you simply keep quiet and look the other way when you see them. Even the Crypto Twitterazzi who constantly (and correctly) complain about all the scams and corruption are unwilling to actually say or do anything meaningful about it.
Luckily, there are guys out there like Tomas Stasiulevicius who aren’t afraid to say and do the right thing. And for that, we congratulate him for earning the title of “Crypto Badass of the Month” for May of 2018. Thank you, Tomas!
And for anyone else who appreciates what Tomas has done, PLEASE go visit his Twitter, follow him and tell him thanks! ☺