Bitcoin Cash (BCH) founder Roger Ver made a rare media appearance on Tuesday to pump a microcap altcoin, trash talk bitcoin, and explain how his alleged tax misfilings would have been the fault of his accountant.

Former Fox News anchor turned Republican media exec Tucker Carlson interviewed Ver for 40 minutes without challenging his claims, granting him unchecked airtime to frame his indictment as a conspiracy by intelligence agencies to silence him. Elon Musk amplified the broadcast.

The US Department of Justice alleges that Ver evaded approximately $50 million in taxes in 2017. Prosecutors claim that Ver purposefully withheld information, including $240 million worth of crypto transactions, from his accountant in order to avoid paying taxes. Ver is currently facing extradition from Spain for US mail fraud and tax evasion.

Read more: Roger Ver arrested for tax fraud while promoting Bitcoin book

During his interview with Carlson, Ver claimed that he renounced his American citizenship because he upholds American values.

“That’s exactly the value that America was founded on,” Ver said. “It was a bunch of British people that renounced their citizenship and said, ‘I don’t like the laws you guys are passing; I’m not going to be a part of this anymore.’ So renouncing your citizenship is actually one of the most patriotic, American-esque things you can possibly do.”

Carlson suggests US gov’t out to get Roger Ver

Carlson’s one-sided portrayal of Ver’s situation assumed that the US government has an interest in silencing Ver’s speech and subverting Bitcoin’s original promise of financial privacy.

“Maybe it’s not about the taxes,” Carlson opined. “Could there be another reason the US government is angry at you?”

Ver was happy to agree. “I think they’re just angry about my lack of obedience and lack of, y’know, kissing their ring. I was the first person in the world to begin investing in bitcoin… and invest in businesses that made it easy to use bitcoin as money.”

Using his maximum, 109-year sentence for rhetorical effect, Ver warned listeners that if they did not take action, such as visiting his website or signing his petition, he might spend the rest of his life in prison.

The real winner of Tucker Carlson’s interview: Zano

Ver, of course, spent his final years in the crypto industry promoting a fork of bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash (BCH), and a sequence of various altcoins. One such altcoin, Verse, held space on the homepage of his flagship bitcoin.com website for months.

Nowadays, Verse is down 97% from its all-time high. Ver’s BCH is similarly down 97% from its all-time high against bitcoin.

Read more: Roger Ver released on $160K bail as US seeks extradition

One of Ver’s latest darlings is Zano, some sort of next-generation privacy scaling solution for bitcoin, ether, and even user-created altcoins. The micro-cap coin curiously rallied for days ahead of Carlson’s interview that contains six shout-outs for Zano. 

Three months ago, Zano was worth less than $80 million. After Carlson’s interview, which has amassed over 2.5 million impressions on X and 170,000 views on YouTube at press time, Zano has rallied north of $180 million.

Roger Ver asks for help

The interview covered other topics, including the Blocksize Wars and earlier years of Bitcoin history. Carlson even asked Ver who he thinks is the real Satoshi Nakamoto.

“I don’t know, and if anybody knows, I’m not aware of that,” Ver responded. “Whoever he is, or they are, or she is, they deserve their privacy.”

Ver doubted that intelligence agencies had initially created Bitcoin. However, he believes that they eventually hijacked it.

Roger Ver has filed a motion to dismiss his criminal case alongside other attempts to prevent his extradition from Spain to the US. His attorneys argue that the exit tax and tax codes involved in his alleged violations were too vague. He also claims the US government violated his attorney-client privilege and infringed on his free speech.

In both his interview with Carlson and across his own channels, Ver urges the public to sign his petition as he fights criminal proceedings from Mallorca.

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Roger Ver, a.k.a. ‘Bitcoin Jesus,’ was ordered to give up his passport and released on bail by Spanish authorities as the US seeks his extradition over tax fraud charges.  

That’s according to documents seen by Bloomberg that reveal his €150,000 ($163,000) bail, which began on May 17, was granted on the condition that he stay in Spain. 

Ver is also required to visit a Spanish court every two days. Prosecutors attempted to appeal his release but this was rejected. 

The bitcoin investor was arrested in late April after the US accused him of defrauding the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) out of more than $48 million. Just days before his arrest, Ver published his new book Hijacking Bitcoin, which is his own version of Bitcoin’s 2015-2017 blocksize wars.

Read more: Duke Roger Ver becomes finance minister for Joseon

Ver, who owned companies MemoryDealers.com Inc. and Agilestar.com Inc., started buying up bitcoin for himself and his firms, publicizing the purchases and earning his famous nickname.

The IRS alleges, that he ‘concealed and provided false information to his various advisors regarding the number and value of bitcoins he owned and controlled both personally and through his companies.’

Bloomberg reports that Ver’s lawyer, Jaime Campaner, claimed he “is not a fugitive at all, since he has been in touch with the US authorities through his Californian lawyers.” 

“Therefore, he was aware of the investigation and, in my opinion, his arrest didn’t make sense,” he said. 

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Less than four weeks ago, Roger Ver published his version of Bitcoin’s 2015-2017 blocksize wars. In Ver’s first full-length book, Hijacking Bitcoin, he attempted to question the Blockstream-led narrative of the user-activated soft fork that ostensibly saved Bitcoin from the miner-activated soft fork proposal of big blockers like Ver, Gavin Andresen, Mike Hearn, Calvin Ayre, Jihan Wu, and Craig Wright.

A few days later, authorities arrested Ver in Spain for unrelated tax fraud.

The unfortunate sequence of events continues something of a trend in Ver’s life. His idealism has frequently led to encounters with law enforcement. In 2002, for example, he spent 10 months in prison for selling prohibited items (mainly firecrackers) via eBay.

Another detention center stay for Roger Ver

According to a newly unsealed indictment this month, Ver allegedly defrauded the US out of more than $48 million. According to the IRS, “he concealed and provided false information to his various advisors regarding the number and value of bitcoins he owned and controlled both personally and through his companies.”

Spanish authorities arrested Ver this month and are detaining him pending extradition proceedings to the US court system.

The US Justice Department (DoJ) will seek to try him in a federal courthouse for his criminal charges. In addition to demanding payment of overdue taxes plus penalties, authorities will seek a prison sentence. In national criminal proceedings, discretion is given to a federal judge to decide the ultimate terms of punishment.

As the predecessor of modern-day celebrities like Michael Saylor, Ver was Bitcoin’s most prominent spokesperson prior to 2017.

The Gospel of Bitcoin Jesus

For Ver (a.k.a. Bitcoin Jesus), Bitcoin was primarily a freedom technology — a tool in his arsenal of other self-sovereign tools like privacy tools, crisis gear, home fortifications, and guns.

Ver wanted Bitcoin’s blocksize to increase so that data storage for everyday commerce transactions would be affordable and fast. In his new book, he argues that he doesn’t regret championing the Bitcoin Cash version of Bitcoin, even though he’s widely viewed as the loser of the blocksize war.

Eventually, Ver began arguing that Bitcoin should fork its consensus node software to increase its block data storage size. Specifically, he advocated for a large data version of Bitcoin that still operates today, Bitcoin Cash (BCH). Fast forward to today, and BCH has a 99.3% smaller market capitalization than bitcoin (BTC). 

Defeated, he retired from his media career and lived a quieter life in the Caribbean. “I absolutely made a deliberate decision to do less media stuff,” he admitted. “That civil war is kind of over now.”

This month, he was traveling in Spain. Law enforcement arrested him and are holding him in a Spanish detention center.

Read more: Duke Roger Ver becomes finance minister for Joseon

Ver’s alleged tax fraud

According to the DoJ, Ver illegally reduced his tax liability by transferring ownership of his bitcoin to several companies in order to evade an ‘exit tax’ requirement prior to renouncing his US citizenship. That scheme failed. Simply shuffling assets to one’s own companies and claiming not to own those assets as of a snapshot date for tax purposes is classic tax fraud. Worse, Ver wrote down his plans for this type of scheme in an email, which law enforcement obtained as evidence against him.

The DoJ also alleges that Ver provided or caused to be provided false and misleading tax information to his attorney.

On Ver’s expatriation-related tax returns (IRS forms 1040NR and 8854), his attorney didn’t report that Ver owned any bitcoin personally as of March 2, 2014 when Ver furnished his statement of voluntary relinquishment of US Citizenship to a US consulate. 

To make things even worse, Ver’s attorney incorrectly dated his expatriation to February 3 rather than the true March 2 date.

It’s fine to legally avoid taxes, but evading taxes is a crime. Once again, Roger Ver is arrested and unless he strikes a plea deal, a jury will determine whether he is guilty of tax evasion.

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The post Roger Ver arrested for tax fraud while promoting Bitcoin book appeared first on Protos.

Bitcoin.com chairman Roger Ver has been named a duke of Joseon and has been awarded the position of minister of finance. Mark Karpelès, the former CEO of the defunct cryptocurrency exchange Mt. Gox, has received the same title and will serve as the minister of technology.

Joseon, a so-called ‘cyber nation-state,’ takes its name from a former Kingdom of Korea and claims to offer the opportunity to “run your business without archaic regulation.” 

Besides inheriting the name, the ’empire’ of Joseon maintains the tradition of hereditary accession to the throne. The current ‘king’ is Andrew Lee who previously started a virtual private network provider called Private Internet Access. The last emperor died childless so Lee’s claim derives from the line of the brother of the last emperor. 

Joseon, lacking the type of physical presence most nation-states rely on, has instead decided to use ‘denizenship’ instead of citizenship. The nation’s ‘whitepaper’ describes the concept as effectively creating a corporation that enables you to “bifurcate its identity and reputation from the physical person.”

It claims that this technique “legally creates a vehicle whereby actions can be taken on behalf of the person, within the domicile of Joseon, completely separating jurisdiction over the Person versus jurisdiction over the Denizen.”

Joseon further insists that “the jurisdictional sovereignty of Joseon within its cyber dominion is absolute.”

Joseon and Antigua and Barbuda have entered into an “Agreement of Peace, Amity and Commerce,” in which Antigua and Barbuda have entered into diplomatic relationships.

Read more: Did Justin Sun’s diplomatic immunity get revoked?

Joseon’s Cryptocurrency Mun

Joseon has a blockchain, which it says “renders certain bad behaviors nearly impossible.” This blockchain is used to manage Joseon’s currency Mun.  

Along with the whitepaper, 2.4 trillion tokens were also issued. One-fifth of the supply was reserved for the government, one-twentieth for ‘officials,’ 65% for the ‘Ministry of Patronage,’ and just one-tenth for ‘Denizens.’

Ver and Karpeles are far from the only crypto figures to take on roles in various governments. Justin Sun was once the permanent Grenada ambassador to the World Trade Organization until he wasn’t, and Max Keiser serves as an advisor to El Salvador president Nayib Bukele.

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The post Duke Roger Ver becomes finance minister for Joseon appeared first on Protos.