Roger Ver

Roger Ver
Ver, December 2016
Born (1979-01-27) 27 January 1979 (age 45)
San Jose, California, U.S.
Nationality
OccupationEntrepreneur
Known forPromoting Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash
MovementLibertarianism, anarcho-capitalism, Voluntaryism
Websiterogerver.com

Roger Keith Ver (born 27 January 1979[1]) is an early investor in Bitcoin, Bitcoin-related startups and an early promoter of Bitcoin, and sometimes known as Bitcoin Jesus.[2][3] He now primarily promotes Bitcoin Cash.[4][5]

Born and raised in Silicon Valley, he sold fireworks on eBay and later pleaded guilty to a related felony charge.[6] He served ten months in prison and then moved to Japan in 2005. He renounced his United States citizenship in 2014 after obtaining citizenship in Saint Kitts and Nevis. He previously was CEO of Bitcoin.com.[7] He was indicted in April 2024 for income tax evasion in the US.

Early life and education

Ver was born in 1979 in San Jose, California. He attended Valley Christian High School and then De Anza College for one year, before dropping out to pursue his business interests.

Ver attempted a run for the California State Assembly in the Libertarian Party. During a debate in the run-up to this election, he claimed that the Drug Enforcement Administration was criminal in its practice. He moved to Japan in 2005, where he maintained his residence as of 2021.

Career

MemoryDealers.com

Ver was the CEO of MemoryDealers.com from 1999 until 2012.[8] In 2000, he attempted to enter politics by running for California State Assembly as a candidate for the Libertarian Party.[9]

Cryptocurrency

Ver began investing in bitcoin in early 2011.[10][2] The first investment he made was for Charlie Shrem’s Bitinstant.[11] Ver's investment allowed the company to hire a designer and another programmer.[12] He invested over a million dollars into new Bitcoin-related startups, including Ripple, Blockchain.com, BitPay,[13] and Kraken.[14] In 2011, Ver's company Memorydealers was the first to accept Bitcoin as payment.[15] He has been a prominent supporter of Bitcoin adoption and saw Bitcoin as a means to promote economic freedom.

In 2012, Ver was organizing Bitcoin meetups in Sunnyvale, California.[16] He is one of five founders of the Bitcoin Foundation.[17] Ver wants Bitcoin to rival major fiat currencies.

He is one of the main proponents of a larger block size for the Bitcoin blockchain. He supported the development of Bitcoin XT as a hard fork method towards an increase. Ver and his high school friend Jesse Powell attempted to re-establish the Mt Gox exchange during the June 2011 Bitcoin price crash.[16]

Ver was CEO of Bitcoin.com[18] until 1 August 2019, when he transitioned to executive chairman. In early 2020, Fortune Magazine mistakenly referred to Ver as the co-creator of Bitcoin Cash.[19]

CoinFlex

As of June 2022, he was a shareholder in CoinFLEX, a centralized yield crypto exchange and he is rumoured to be in a large amount of debt, which caused problems for the site.[20][21] On 23 June 2022, CoinFlex paused withdrawals after a counterparty, which it later named as Ver, experienced liquidity issues and failed to repay a $47 million stablecoin margin call.[22]

Personal life

Ver renounced his United States citizenship in 2014 after he became a citizen of Saint Kitts and Nevis.[14][23] In 2015, he was denied a visa to reenter the United States by the U.S. embassy in Barbados, which claimed that he had not sufficiently proven ties outside of the United States that would motivate him to leave at the end of his visit, causing fears he might become an illegal immigrant.[24][23][25] Later in the same year his visa was approved by the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, and he visited the United States in 2017 to speak at a conference in Aspen, Colorado.[26] Ver's name was published in the 2018 Q1 Quarterly Publication of Individuals Who Have Chosen to Expatriate.[27] In 2019, Ver was denied a visa to travel to Australia. In 2020, Ver also became a citizen of Antigua and Barbuda.[28]

Ver identifies as a libertarian, anarcho-capitalist, voluntaryist, a peace advocate, and an advocate for individualism.[10]

Brazilian jiu-jitsu as one of his major passions in life. Ver can be seen in videos competing in BJJ world championships[29] and has achieved the rank of brown belt.[30]

In 2002, Ver pleaded guilty to selling explosive materials without a license, as well as illegally storing and mailing them. Ver sold at least 14 pounds of a brand called "Pest Control Report 2000" fireworks as large firecrackers on eBay, stored them in a residential apartment building, and mailed them to customers via the U.S. Postal Service. He was sentenced to 10 months in federal prison.[14][24][6][31] The manufacturer was later forced to stop making and selling the product, which contained gunpowder far above the legal limit for consumer firecrackers.[32]

He was arrested in Spain on U.S. tax evasion charges in April 2024.[33][34] In December 2024 Ver's attorneys filed to have the case dismissed and Ver was still in Spain (where he had been arrested by Spanish authorities) fighting extradition to the US.[35]

See also

References

  1. ^ Goulder, Robert. "The Immaculate Expatriation: Bitcoin Jesus And The Exit Tax". Forbes. Retrieved 21 October 2024.
  2. ^ a b Harjani, Ansuya (2 December 2013). "Meet 'Bitcoin Jesus,' a virtual currency millionaire". CNBC. Retrieved 25 December 2016.
  3. ^ Picciotto, Rebecca (1 May 2024). "DOJ charges 'Bitcoin Jesus' with $48 million tax fraud, seeks extradition". CNBC. Retrieved 2 May 2024.
  4. ^ Nakamoto, Satoshi. "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-peer Electronic Cash System". Bitcoin.org. Bitcoin.org. Retrieved 29 September 2021.
  5. ^ Popper, Nathaniel (25 July 2017). "Some Bitcoin Backers Are Defecting to Create a Rival Currency". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 28 July 2017.
  6. ^ a b "San Jose, California Man Pleads Guilty to Selling Explosives on eBay". U.S. Department of Justice, United States Attorney, Northern District of California. 2 May 2002. Archived from the original on 13 February 2015.
  7. ^ "Bitcoin Cash Advocate Roger Ver Considers Launching Own Exchange". Bloomberg. Retrieved 3 August 2019.
  8. ^ Farivar, Cyrus (1 August 2015). "Bitcoin investor who renounced US citizenship now can't get back in". ArsTechnica. Wired Media Group. Retrieved 28 December 2016.
  9. ^ SmartVoter (3 February 2000). "Voter Information for Roger K Ver". League of Women Voters.
  10. ^ a b Ver, Roger. "Biography". RogerVer.com. RogerVer.com. Retrieved 28 September 2021.
  11. ^ Jeffries, Adrianne (13 December 2011). "Brooklyn-based Bitcoin Startup BitInstant Raises Seed Round". Observer. Observer Media. Retrieved 28 December 2016.
  12. ^ Russell, Kyle (29 January 2014). "Meet The 'Bitcoin Millionaire' Arrested for Allegedly Helping Silk Road Launder $US1 Million". Business Insider Australia. Allure Media. Retrieved 28 December 2016.
  13. ^ Lunden, Ingrid. "With PayPal-like Ambitions for Bitcoin, BitPay Raises $2M Led by Founders Fund". TechCrunch. Retrieved 14 August 2017.
  14. ^ a b c Clenfield, Jason; Alpeyev, Pavel (16 June 2014). "'Bitcoin Jesus' Calls Rich to Tax-free Tropical Paradise". Bloomberg. Retrieved 25 December 2016.
  15. ^ McMillan, Robert (19 December 2013). "How Bitcoin Became the Honey Badger of Money". Wired. Conde Nast. Retrieved 25 January 2017.
  16. ^ a b Vigna, Paul; Casey, Michael J. (2015). The Age of Cryptocurrency: How Bitcoin and Digital Money Are Challenging the Global Economic Order. St. Martin's Press. pp. 178, 268. ISBN 978-1466873063. Retrieved 3 January 2017.
  17. ^ Farivar, Cyrus (7 April 2015). "Bitcoin Foundation is 'effectively bankrupt,' board member says". ArsTechnica. Condé Nast. Retrieved 5 September 2019.
  18. ^ Cheng, Evelyn (11 December 2017). "'Bitcoin Jesus' is 'really, really concerned' about the future of the digital currency". CNBC. Retrieved 3 August 2019.
  19. ^ Morris, David (8 January 2020). "In Cryptocurrency, It's Bitcoiners vs. Everyone Else". Fortune.com. Retrieved 2 February 2020.
  20. ^ "Crypto Exchange CoinFlex to Issue Tokens After Withdrawal Freeze". Bloomberg.com. 27 June 2022. Retrieved 28 June 2022.
  21. ^ FatManTerra. "Ver had a long on BCH, and the platform allowed him to run a deficit because he personally guaranteed he would pay them back". Twitter. Retrieved 28 June 2022.
  22. ^ "Crypto Exchange CoinFlex Won't Resume Withdrawals as Planned". Bloomberg News. Retrieved 4 July 2022.
  23. ^ a b Minsky, David (16 January 2015). "U.S. Won't Let 'Bitcoin Jesus' Who Renounced His Citizenship Come to Miami for Conference". Miami New Times (blog).
  24. ^ a b Sparkes, Matthew (7 January 2015). "Millionaire 'Bitcoin Jesus' denied entry to the US". Telegraph (UK).
  25. ^ Farivar, Cyrus (7 January 2015). "Bitcoin investor who renounced US citizenship now can't get back in: Roger Ver gave up US passport in favor of St. Kitts last year". Ars Technica.
  26. ^ "Initial Coin Offerings: A look at the future of the latest investing trend". ABC News. 7 October 2017.
  27. ^ "Quarterly Publication of Individuals, Who Have Chosen to Expatriate, as Required by Section 6039G". Federal Register. 8 May 2018. Retrieved 23 July 2020.
  28. ^ "Antigua Government says Roger Ver's charges not related to his Antigua citizenship". Antigua News Room. 3 May 2024.
  29. ^ triforcebjj (31 May 2013), Roger Ver vs David Garmo in 2013 BJJ World Championships, retrieved 2 October 2018
  30. ^ "Roger Ver, World's First Investor in Bitcoin on His Passion for BJJ & Brown Belt". Bjj Eastern Europe. 1 December 2017. Retrieved 2 October 2018.
  31. ^ Raskin, Max (13 April 2013). "Meet the Bitcoin Millionaires". Bloomberg. Retrieved 28 December 2016.
  32. ^ "Missouri Company Ordered To Stop Manufacturing and Selling Illegal Fireworks". United States Consumer Product Safety Commission. 17 January 2003. Retrieved 4 March 2023.
  33. ^ "Early Bitcoin Investor Charged with Tax Fraud". United States Department of Justice. 30 April 2024.
  34. ^ "'Bitcoin Jesus' Arrested in Spain for Evading U.S. Taxes". WSJ. Retrieved 1 May 2024.
  35. ^ "Roger Ver's legal team moves to dismiss indictment citing government overreach". Fox News. Retrieved 4 December 2024.