I'm incredibly saddened to share that yesterday, my co-founder and closest friend Meher passed away after a long fight against leukemia. I met Meher back in 2014. At the time, he was working for Novartis, but he had a deep interest in cryptocurrencies. He was an Epicenter listener and wanted us to feature a project that he was an advisor for.
I met Meher in person soon after and was struck by his knowledge and intelligence. We became friends and I asked him to become a co-host for @epicenterbtc. In the coming years, we co-hosted many episodes together and developed a deep connection.
Later Meher left Novartis and co-founded a crypto company called Validity Labs. He left that in 2016 and started to explore some of his own startup ideas. In 2017, I was COO of Tendermint, the company that started the Cosmos ecosystem. There was a Cosmos team retreat in Mexico after DevCon and Meher joined as well.
We talked a lot about Proof-of-Stake and where it was going. And then we decided to found @ChorusOne together. When I think of all my years building Chorus One, there are many great decisions we made and many bad decisions as well. But among the great decisions, the one that stands out the most is choosing Meher as a co-founder.
He was the best co-founder I could have had. His brilliance, vision, curiosity and work ethic were incredibly. But what he also had was so much kindness and integrity. In all the years working together, we didn't have a single fight. Any disagreements we had, we were able to resolve so easily only deepening the trust between us.
In April 2021, Meher was diagnosed with leukemia. I remember crying at the airport in Dubai after he called me, just as we were about to start our company offsite. He spent the rest of that year in the hospital going through a heavy course of chemotherapy. It left him weakened, but at the end of the year, the cancer was in remission.
In 2022, he started to slowly recover, though continued to be on chemotherapy to prevent a relapse until the end of 2023. At the start of 2024, it finally looked like the disease was behind him. Unfortunately, in May 2025, a checkup revealed that the cancer had relapsed.
He then had another heavy round of chemotherapy. They did radiation and then completed a bone marrow transplant. While they had found a 10/10 match in the donor, his recovery was very slow. The new bone marrow did not produce a lot of new red blood cells. And he started to have some signs of graft versus host disease.
He tried to start working a little bit again at the start of this year, but his energy was very limited. And then his condition got worse. He started to have some lesions in the brain.
Meher had become extraordinarily knowledgeable about leukemia and was regularly consulting with other doctors. He thought that it was gvhd in the brain, but this is extremely rare and the doctors in Switzerland had never seen it. They suspected that leukemia had relapsed in the brain.
They were hesitant to treat for gvhd and did many tests to rule out a cancer relapse. His condition continued to deteriorate rapidly. Finally, they did start treating for gvhd, but he didn't respond well to the treatment.
When the doctors in Switzerland were at the end of their knowledge, the family decided to relocate him to New York on May 23. On the medical transport, his condition deteriorated further and he almost passed away. Then his condition stabilized and they started gvhd treatments, including experimental stem cell therapy.
Unfortunately, that also did not work and he continued to deteriorate. And then he finally passed away yesterday at 11:52am.
Meher was a big believer in science and technological progress. He had done a lot of research into cryopreservation and had signed up with an organization called @tomorrowbio. I had many calls with their team to ensure that the cryopreservation would go smoothly.
After he was declared dead, the cryopreservation team rapidly cooled him to 1C and replaced his blood with cryoprotective agent. They then further cooled him down to -80C. Now, they are preparing to relocate him to Switzerland, where he will be cooled down to -196C over a period of 10 days and then stored for the long term.
If Meher is right, the hope is that medical technology will progress enough in the next decades that he could be brought back. When the time is right, his temperature will be gradually raised again and they will try to reverse the damage to his body.
And when that has been done to a sufficient extent, he could be brought back.
Meher is survived by his wife Kiran, who did not give up to the last moment and went to all lengths to try to help him beat his disease. And he is also survived by his 6 year old son Zubin, who inherited all his brilliance, warmth and curiosity.
Meher achieved a huge amount in his life that was all too short. He touched so many people and was universally loved. For however much he achieved, there is so much more he would have been capable of. His death is a great loss. To his family, to his friends and co-workers, but also to humanity. We have lost one of our most brilliant and talented people.
I very much hope that science will progress enough that he can come back some day. I will do my best to contribute to that to whatever small extent I can.
I'm incredibly grateful for all the time I got to spend with him. For the enormous privilege I had to work with him as my co-founder. For everything I learned from him and for the beautiful friendship and partnership that we had.
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