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When popular bitcoin influencer Roger Ver, known by his 700,000 X followers as “Bitcoin Jesus,” was arrested in February while attending a cryptocurrency conference in Barcelona, the $3 trillion digital asset industry erupted with social media posts and commentary from leading industry voices condemning the act as yet another example of the Biden administration’s “war on crypto.”
Ver’s arrest came after the U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California unsealed an eight-count criminal indictment accusing him of allegedly failing to pay nearly $50 million in taxes on the sale of some $240 million worth of bitcoin in 2017 and under-representing the value of his bitcoin holdings in 2014 when he renounced his citizenship and left the U.S. for the Caribbean nation of Saint Kitts and Nevis.
Lawyers for Ver, 45, an early adopter and promoter of bitcoin who has publicly criticized the U.S. government’s approach to crypto regulation, say the Justice Department’s indictment is purely political and another example of Biden-era officials using enforcement to regulate a space without providing clear rules of the road.
Roger Ver poses for a photograph at the Shape the Future: Blockchain Global Summit in Hong Kong, China, on Sept. 20, 2017. (Anthony Kwan/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images)
Now Ver and his lawyers are fighting back. His legal team is made up of attorneys from white-shoe law firms Steptoe LLP and Kimura London & White, who on Tuesday filed a motion to dismiss the indictment, citing unconstitutional government overreach and misleading evidence. People on his legal team are hoping that a crypto-friendly Trump administration will drop the case as part of the president-elect’s promise to end the regulatory assault on the industry.
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People on Ver’s legal team are hoping that a crypto-friendly Trump administration will drop the case as part of the president-elect’s promise to end the regulatory assault on the industry. (James Devaney/GC Images | istock)
“I always knew I’d be a political target for the IRS and law enforcement after I expatriated,” Ver said in an exclusive statement to FOX Business. “That’s why I made sure to hire the most reputable attorneys and accountants and gave them clear instructions to file everything perfectly — so there’d be no issues when the inevitable audit came. But of course, the IRS still found a way to make it a problem anyhow.”
Ver is an American entrepreneur who briefly ran for California State Assembly in 2000 as a libertarian. His nickname “Bitcoin Jesus” is the result of his early investment in and promotion of the world’s largest digital asset dating back to 2011 when he used to give away free bitcoin when the asset, which now trades at nearly $100,000 per token, traded anywhere…
Read More: ‘Bitcoin Jesus’ Roger Ver’s legal team moves to dismiss indictment