MOUNT EVEREST — A cryptocurrency PR publicity stunt organized by a social networking site has reportedly cost a Sherpa's life who helped lead a team up Mount Everest.

For their upcoming cryptocurrency offering, social networking site ASKFM thought they needed something different to draw attention from the public.

On May 14th, the social networking site sent four cryptocurrency enthusiasts to climb Mount Everest to bury two hardware wallets containing $50,000 worth of their tokens, ASKT.

And whoever's brave enough to climb the mountain and lucky enough to find the hardware wallets, get to keep them and the ASKT tokens.

So why the audacious move then? According to the company's blog post, cryptocurrency offering isn't something fresh anymore, so AskFM being one of world's top 10 social networks and world's largest Q&A platform, can definitely afford to make symbolic statements and draw attention.

However, the whole thing wasn't such a smooth climb as ASKFM's post mentioned that two of the climbers were stranded at above 7,000 metres with no reserve oxygen until they were rescued by air response on the second day.

One Sherpa wasn't so lucky, he reportedly went missing at about 7,900 metres when the team was descending down the mountain, and he never made it down.

In an interview with the Financial Times, ASKFm's CEO Max Tsaryk admitted the event was tragic and horrifying but said the company should not be blamed for it, instead the Sherpa's death should be directed to the company that represented him.

The CEO was later asked if he had felt this campaign had gone too far, Tsaryk said he didn't think there's much difference between ICO marketing and standard marketing stunts, therefore his company should not be blamed for a stunt that went wrong.