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Nikolai Mushegian was a prominent computer scientist and software engineer who made significant contributions to decentralized finance (DeFi) and blockchain technology. Here are the key facts about him:

**Early Life & Education:**
- Born March 28, 1993 in Lexington, Kentucky
- Parents were life scientists who immigrated from the Soviet Union
- Had Ukrainian, Armenian, and Russian ancestry
- Graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in 2014 with a computer science degree
- While at university, he designed and taught a course on blockchain technology to his peers

**Major Contributions to Crypto/DeFi:**
- Co-founded MakerDAO in 2015 with Rune Christensen - the first decentralized stablecoin project on Ethereum
- Designed and built the Single-Collateral Dai system, launched in December 2017
- Led development of Wrapped Ether (WETH) in 2016, an important ERC-20 compatible token
- Co-authored the Balancer white paper in 2019 for a decentralized exchange
- Co-founded the RAI project in 2020, creating a purely crypto-backed stablecoin
- Co-founded RICO in 2022, a next-generation stablecoin project
- Identified critical security vulnerabilities in smart contracts and engineered protections

**Death:**
- Died October 28, 2022 at age 29 in San Juan, Puerto Rico
- Found on a reef near Condado Beach after going for a walk
- Police investigation found no foul play

Mushegian was remembered as a visionary who helped shape the future of decentralized finance, with colleagues calling him "a cypherpunk" and "nothing short of a visionary" who remained committed to building truly decentralized financial systems.