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Roger Ver was one of the first investors and promoters of Bitcoin.
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He participated as an investor in projects such as Ripple and Blockchain.com.
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He renounced his American citizenship and became a citizen of Saint Kitts and Nevis.
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In 2017, Ver decided to switch his allegiance to Bitcoin Cash, the fork of Bitcoin.
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In 2024, he was arrested and charged with tax evasion in the United States.
Roge Ver is a popular investor and promoter of cryptocurrencies, especially Bitcoin Cashof American origin and Santo Cristobaleño nationality. He is primarily known for being an early Bitcoin (BTC) investor and for driving the use of the digital asset through interviews, speaking engagements, and investments. However, his ideas about cryptocurrencies, along with his personal experiences, have made opinions about the famous investor increasingly polarized.
What do we know about Roger Ver?
Roger Ver was born in 1979 in the city of San José, California. He is known to have attended Valley Christian High School, a Christian school institute founded in 1960. He later transferred to De Anza College, a public community college. He stayed there for a year and then decided to abandon his studies to pursue his business interests.
From 1999 to 2012, Roger was executive director from MemoryDealers.coma company that offered custom transceivers, memory accessories, and hardware. Later, in 2000, he attempted to get involved in politics by running for the California State Assembly as a candidate for the Libertarian party, however, he was unsuccessful.
In 2004 he founded Agilestar.com, a company specialized in fiber optic transceivers. A year later he moved to Japan, where he has lived for many years.
A controversy in Japan: Roger Ver and Mt.Gox
As a Bitcoin supporter and resident of Japan, Roger Ver is no stranger to Mt. Gox. In fact, the first time the exchange ran into security issues, Ver helped the platform stay online and stayed in touch with customers, fielding calls from thousands of users worried about their savings. Ver initially blamed the traditional banking system for the problems, but later publicly apologized and said Mark Karpelès did not do enough to protect Mt. Gox.
In 2014, Ver renounced his US citizenship after becoming a citizen of Saint Kitts and Nevis. Later, in 2015, the United States embassy refused to give him the visa to re-enter North American territory, alleging that Roger did not demonstrate that he had sufficient ties outside the country that would make him return after his visit, so there was a risk that he would become an illegal immigrant.
However, that same year, Ver got his visa approved at the US embassy in Tokyo and in 2017 he was able to visit the United States to give a conference in Colorado. As a curious fact, a year later Ver’s name appeared in the List of individuals who have decided to expatriate. Shortly after, Roger became a citizen of Antigua and Barbuda.
Roger Ver, investor and defender of bitcoin, during 2016. Source: wikimedia commons.
How did Roger Ver get started in the world of cryptocurrencies?
In 2011, Roger Ver started investing in bitcoin. His first investment was dedicated to Bitinstant, Charlie Shrem’s exchange company. This investment allowed the company to hire another programmer and a designer. Roger subsequently invested over a million dollars in Bitcoin-related companies such as Ripple, BitPay, Kraken, and Blockchain.com.
As a curious fact, around the same time, Ver’s company, MemoryDealers, was the first company to accept bitcoin as a payment method. Since then, Roger has been a prominent advocate and promoter of BTC, seeing the digital asset as a means to boost economic freedom.
In 2012, Roger hosted Bitcoin meetups in California. Likewise, he was one of the main founders of the Bitcoin Foundation.
The other founders of the Bitcoin Foundation
Among the other members was Gavin Andersen, involved in the development of Bitcoin from its beginnings; Charles Shrem, accused of facilitating money laundering; Mark Karpelès, former CEO of Mt. Gox and controversial figure; Peter Vessenes, who was executive director of the foundation; Patrick Murck, who has advised regulators and policymakers at the IMF and Mehul Puri, a developer about whom little information is known.
Likewise, from 2014 to 2019, Roger Ver was CEO of Bitcoin.comlater became its executive director until 2020. Later, in 2022 he was a shareholder in CoinFLEX, a centralized yield Cryptocurrency exchange. The platform had had problems due to rumors of debt and many inconveniences.
CoinFLEX claimed that an unidentified investor had defaulted on a margin call and, later, the exchange’s CEO, Mark Lamb, assured that person was Roger Ver. This is how Ver was accused of duty 47 million dollarsbut the investor denied this accusation and stated that it is actually CoinFLEX who owes him money.
Why is Roger Ver known as “Bitcoin Jesus”?
Roger Ver is widely known in the cryptocurrency world as the “Bitcoin Jesus” because From its beginnings it was a fervent defender and promoter of Bitcoin technology and, later, Bitcoin Cash. In fact, he earned the nickname thanks to his early investments, as he was a pioneer in investing in BTC, even when the digital asset was quite unknown and did not have a very high value.
Since then, Roger has dedicated much of his life to encouraging the use not only of bitcoin, but of cryptocurrencies in general. He has promoted this technology through investments, conferences, interviews and even from his own platform, Bitcoin.com.
On the other hand, Ver also earned the nickname for his personality and charisma, as his communication skills and constant presence in the ecosystem are factors that have contributed to his current popularity.
However, despite having been a renowned maximalist, Roger is one of the main advocates that Bitcoin should have a larger blockchain to increase your transaction time. Therefore, he supported the development of the alternative currency Bitcoin Cash. This brought with it a lot of rejection from several members of the bitcoiner community.
What is Bitcoin Cash?
We can say that Bitcoin Cash is the first direct fork of Bitcoin. This means that the original code of the first blockchain and its transactions were “copied” to a certain level; After there, a new blockchain was created with different parameters and, consequently, a new digital currency.
It is worth noting that, for a large part of the community, Bitcoin Cash remains an alternative cryptocurrency, a fork of the original, while Bitcoin is the only one recognized as the main network.
Why is Roger Ver a controversial figure?
Despite his nickname “Bitcoin Jesus” and his pioneering role within the bitcoin community, Roger has also become a figure full of controversy (as often happens with these great personalities in the sector). See has generated rejection within some groups for the following:
First, he is a staunch supporter of Bitcoin Cash (BCH), the fork of Bitcoin that emerged after a disagreement over the direction the network should take. This position has put him at odds with many members of the community, who claim that BCH is not the true Bitcoin and never will be.
A civil war over the size of the block
The Bitcoin block size dispute, which lasted from 2014 to 2017, caused significant fragmentation in the community (which is why some call it The Block War). This controversy led to the creation of numerous alternative versions of Bitcoin (hard forks), sparking intense debate over the identity and future of the original cryptocurrency.
In second place, Roger has been accused of manipulating the cryptocurrency marketespecially that of Bitcoin Cash, through their investments and public statements. Furthermore, the famous investor has been involved in several legal entanglements; was accused of tax evasion in the United States. Obviously, these drawbacks have damaged his public image and raised doubts among his followers.
Among its legal problems, we must mention the drawback which happened in 2002. During those dates, Ver pleaded guilty to selling explosive materials without a license, as well as illegally storing and shipping them. The investor fraudulently marketed highly dangerous fireworks, erroneously labeled as “firecrackers,” through the eBay platform.
For this event, he was sentenced to 10 months in federal prison. Shortly after, the manufacturer of the product was forced to stop manufacturing it, as it contained a quantity of gunpowder well above the permitted limits.
On the other hand, due to the tax evasion for which he was accused, in 2024 Roger was arrested in Spain. However, Ver’s lawyers requested that dismissed the casewhile the investor was fighting not to be extradited to the United States.
A donation man
Despite all the drawbacks, for some people Roger Ver can be considered a philanthropist, as he has made several donations throughout his life: he donated more than $3,000,000 USD to the Foundation for Economic Education, $1,000,000 to anti-war causes drugs and more than $1,000,000 to Brownstone.org. He also donated more than $500,000 to AntiWar.com. On the other hand, Roger defines himself as a willing defender of peace and individualism.
Roger Ver having a heated discussion in an interview about Bitcoin Cash. Source: Youtube.com
How does Roger Ver see the future of Bitcoin?
In an interview about the future of Bitcoin and digital assets, Roger assured that he cares more about the general well-being of the cryptocurrency community than about promoting a “real currency.”
In fact, the investor highlighted the importance of having “a plurality of cryptoassets” in order to give consumers options and really open the market. On the other hand, he mentioned the importance of the scalability of cryptocurrencies: “Without a huge network, it is impossible for money to be accepted globally.”
Likewise, in the interview, Roger Ver also made statements about the future of Bitcoin Cash and its next advances. He mentioned, for example, the Bitcoin Cash Oracles project, which are internal sensors responsible for activating a smart contract in the cryptocurrency network.
This suggests that new ways to deploy smart contracts on the Bitcoin Cash network are being explored, which could have significant implications for its functionality and future applications in the cryptocurrency ecosystem.
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