The arrest of a man known as “Bitcoin Jesus” has been hailed as evidence that the US Government is waging a clandestine “war” on crypto.
Roger Ver, an early investor in Bitcoin, was arrested last weekend in Spain and has been charged with mail fraud, tax evasion and filing false tax returns.
Prosecutors allege that Ver evaded almost $50 million in taxes. He is now awaiting extradition and will stand trial in the United States.
Both the disciples of Bitcoin Jesus and his enemies have expressed fears that the arrest is part of a wider crypto crackdown initiated by the Biden administration.
The President recently announced a bill which would overturn the SEC’s SAB 121 guidelines, which requires financial institutions and firms to hold customers’ digital assets on their balance sheet – unlike traditional securities.
Members that voted to torpedo the rules fear they makes the provision of crypto custody services prohibitively expensive for banks.
The White House hit back by saying that “limiting the SEC’s ability to maintain a comprehensive and effective financial regulatory framework for crypto-assets would introduce substantial financial instability and market uncertainty”.
“First they came for Roger Ver…”
After Roger Ver’s arrest, the crypto community started sharing the hashtag #FreeRoger.
On X, a prominent crypto advocate called Sal the Agorist wrote: “My friend, Roger Ver, one of the most principled voluntaryists alive, has been arrested for not paying taxes to the US govt – despite not being a citizen of the United States.
“The government’s war on crypto continues…”
Sina, founder of 21st Capital, also wrote: “There is a silent war going on. The administration is working hard to kill Bitcoin and crypto after they lost the ETF game to the Judiciary.
That is why they went after self-custody, Samourai, Roger Ver, etc. all in a short span of time. The plan is to only allow the ETFs and kill everything else.”
The highly controversial influencer Andrew Tate, who is awaiting extradition to the UK and is facing allegations of rape and human trafficking, described the arrest as a “Matrix attack”, which is a conspiratorial term he uses to describe an alleged secret international cabal that controls the world.
“Who’s going to be safer on the street because Roger Ver went to jail 10 years after he mined Bitcoin?” Tate asked during a Rumble live stream shared by his fans on Twitter.
Who is Roger Ver, how did he get rich and what was his role in Bitcoin Cash?
Ver first started investing in Bitcoin in 2011 when its price fluctuated between roughly $1 and $30.
He grew rich, earning the nickname Bitcoin Jesus. However, even though Ver renounced US citizenship, becoming a citizen of St. Kitts and Nevis, the taxman in Washington still wants his share of the goodies.
The US Department of Justice has said Ver was still legally required to file tax returns in the US due to capital gains from the “constructive sale of his worldwide assets”, including “the bitcoins”.
The DoJ also alleged he needed to pay “exit tax” – a levy imposed on certain US citizens and long-term residents who renounce their citizenship or residency.
By February 2014, Ver and his companies, MemoryDealers and Agilestar, allegedly owned approximately 131,000 bitcoins – which were trading for around $870 each at the time.
The DoJ alleged that the value of these Bitcoins and the companies which held them were undervalued. It also accused him of failing to pay tax on the sales of his crypto wealth and the dividends generated by his virtual treasury.
“In total, Ver is alleged to have caused a loss to the IRS of at least $48 million,” the DoJ claimed.
It also stated: “An indictment is merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.”
Enemies of Bitcoin Jesus
Ver (pictured above) was not necessarily popular in the crypto community.
He famously promoted Bitcoin Cash (BCH) as the “real Bitcoin” when it emerged in 2017 as a fork of Bitcoin, aiming to increase the block size limit for faster transactions.
Its price has been volatile, reaching an all-time high near $4,000 in late 2017, before plunging to a dismal low and barely breaking $1,000 ever since.
Ver later denied he had defaulted on a $47 million debt to a crypto derivatives exchange and yield platform.
After the arrest, Dan Held, a crypto entrepreneur and director of growth marketing at Kraken, tweeted: “He’s been a net negative for Bitcoin.”
Held also claimed: “He misaligned expectations around Bitcoin so much that it led to a civil war.”
