Erik Voheres made his first bitcoin fortune by defrauding people millions through feedzebirds.
Roger Ver made his first substantial sums of BTC by importing MtGox to the USA and earning substantial fees in the process while the exchange was in fact running bankrupt. The only reason he avoided jail time was because he had anulled his citizenship, while his close partner Charlie Shrem did 2 years simply for running an exchange while on US soil!
Mircea Popescu (now reportedly dead) earned BTC that later became valuer millions in $ through misleading fees and trading junk securities on his own exchange.
Can you name more now millionaires that earned their wealth through scamming people out of their BTC? Ideally originating in this forum.
1. It wasn't "millions". It was roughly $15k.
https://www.sec.gov/litigation/admin/2014/33-9592.pdfThe FeedZeBirds offering raised 2,600 bitcoins. At the time of the offering, 2,600 bitcoins were worth approximately $15,000.
He raised much more through SatoshiDice, which is also mentioned in the above PDF.
2. I don't like Ver but his biggest MtGOX related mistake was vouching for them in 2013 when they were having apparent solvency issues. Shrem served 15 months of his sentence which was for running an unlicensed money transmission business, which Ver did not.
3. Popescu I'm not about to defend... It would appear he is actually dead so its hard to hold anything against him.
The thing these 3 have in common is they all think (thought) they're too smart to be questioned. This infatigable sense of self-righteousness is quite common among the earliest of bitcoin adopters, and let's face it, this space has always attracted the not-so-morally-inclined. When conniving narcissists are rewarded with huge sums of money and validation, the result is never pretty.