A PUBLICITY stunt that sponsored four bitcoin fanatics’ climb of Mount Everest took a tragic turn earlier this week when one of the Sherpas was believed to have died along the way, according to a report.

ASKfm, a Ukrainian social network, had backed four “crypto enthusiasts” to climb the tallest mountain on earth and bury a hard drive that contained 50,000 bitcoin-like digital “tokens.”

But like in the movie Fargo, where a fictional character buries $1 million in a suitcase along a snow-covered highway, this stunt ended up going all wrong.

One of the Sherpas, Lam Babu Sherpa, was struck with snow blindness and then left behind by the other climbers, the Financial Times reported.

The climbers, however, claim he went “missing,” according to Alan Arnette, a Colorado blogger who covers Everest climbers.

“I find it hard to understand how the 45-year-old Sherpa developed snow blindness, was reported to be staggering and no one was able to help him,” Arnette wrote.

One of the climbers, Taras Pozdnii, didn’t mention the Sherpa in a Facebook post that showed a picture of him giving a thumbs-up with a bandaged hand.

“In general, the adventure is notable,” Pozdnii wrote. “Now we eat steaks.”

When the Financial Times reached out, Pozdnii claimed not to know what happened.

“He [the Sherpa] was behind us, so we don’t know what happened to him. We were going fast and the Sherpa wasn’t coming with us. He was coming behind, so we didn’t see him,” he told the paper.

ASKfm, meanwhile, also claims it doesn’t know what happened to the Sherpa on top of Everest.

“The last update … about the missing Sherpa was that other Sherpas went to look for him.

“We don’t know what happened next, as this was the last official update we received,” Max Tsaryk, ASKfm’s CEO, said in a statement.

Currently, the digital tokens are worthless, though the company contends they could be worth $50,000 one day.