MemoryDealers aka Roger Ver Arrested!

[Darker45]

Although tax avoidance is completely legal, it is dangerous. You can freely do that but you have to make sure that you're a friend with the government. If not, there's always a reason for them to give you headache. There's always something for which you'd be held accountable.

It seems that what Ver is doing as far as not declaring every single coin that he has or undervaluing his companies is common. I doubt if there's a single company that makes honest-to-goodness declarations. It's just unfortunate that Ver is associated with crypto.

But it's certainly wiser not to create a link with your coins if you intend not to honestly report it.

[NotFuzzyWarm]

How are we at war? Kindly pardon my ignorance here as a noob , I may not have fully understood. Although I have learned not to believe everything I read on the Internet but from the news publication if there's any truth to it, MemoryDealers broke the law and he is facing the consequences for it.

I agree with you 100%
As for folks decrying governments - for some reason especially the US - regulating the crypto currencies and taxing them, I have no problem with regulations and paying taxes on them. Let's face it - crypto is money. Why on earth would anyone think that governments would not want a piece of it (taxes) and regulate it as all other forms of money are?

In the US finance laws/rules often seem complex but are actually pretty clear cut. The complexity only comes from trying to evade them by looking for every possible loophole. Work within those guidelines and you are good. Push the boundaries or outright break them and yes, you will face legal problems. I've been a miner since 2014 and have had zero issues with the IRS simply because I pay what is owed.

Would I prefer to not be taxed? Sure. I'd also like to fly and spit diamonds but that is not how the world works.

[peter0425]

Topic will be updated with more information later, but I am interested to hear your opinion about this.

What else can be said?

He evaded taxes and he now is being punished for it. He is not the first billionaire to evade taxes nor will he be the last. Despite what kind of person they are or how they contributed to a specific cause such as bitcoin is not considered in law. If you do not uphold a law then that is totally on you.

Many rich people try to evade as much tax as they can it’s honestly crazy especially thinking just how much money they have.

[theymos]

I read the full indictment, and it looks pretty bad. The thing where he allegedly decided in 2016 to file a 2011 gift tax return saying that he had gifted bitcoins to his partner stood out as especially bad to me. (I wonder: why are they allowed to use quotes from emails between Ver and his lawyer?)

The indictment is just one side of the story, though. It seems to me that the best argument from Ver will be that it was an unintentional mistake. Ver apparently had a bunch of bitcoins floating around between himself-personally and mostly-disregarded-entity S-corps. Pre-expatriation, it may not have been important whether the bitcoins belonged to him or the corporations, so it may have been reasonable for him to not put much thought into the matter. But then it does very much matter during the appraisal of the corporations, and it all gets even more complicated when the S-corps automatically become C-corps after expatriation. That's all very confusing. If I was in that situation, I could see making some sort of honest mistake regarding all of that mess. Though the indictment does try to provide a lot of evidence for intent, and it would've been an awfully big mistake, apparently.

An important detail to note is that this was a grand jury empaneled in June 2023, with the indictment filed in February, and then it was just recently unsealed after he was arrested. There clearly is a DoJ-wide mandate to target crypto, but I don't think that this was intentionally planned to coincide with the Samourai case, or with Ver's book, or anything like that.

I'm not a big fan of the guy overall, but since he's having a very bad day, I'd like to say some nice things about him for a second. He put a lot of effort into building the very-early Bitcoin ecosystem. He's a anarcho-capitalist like me, which is cool. I saw that he once made a large donation to antiwar.com. He's a free-thinker and a freedom-lover, somebody who recognizes that something is terribly wrong with the world, and wants to do something about it. If I had to rank all people on Earth from my favorite to least-favorite, I'd put Ver above where I'd put "every person I don't know anything about", since there are way more experiences/ideas/values I share with Ver than I share with eg. some random farmer in China. So I hope this legal situation turns out well for him, especially since this seems to be part of a larger "war on crypto".

[adaseb]

I am surprised he actually still posted on Bitcointalk. I heard about him years ago when there was that entire bitcoin cash vs Bitcoin saga. I remember watching all those interviews he did phrasing bitcoin cash over bitcoin. He was a little crazy in some of his videos.

So It’s unfortunate what happened to him. Today was also CZ from Binance sentencing and he got 4 months in prison. Couple weeks ago SBF was sentenced also. Seems the government is really cracking down.

[pooya87]

It's the characteristics of certain people to scam and scam and scam until they're caught.

I still remember the series of topics on this forum a couple of years ago from newbies who complained why the bitcoin they had bought never reached their wallets. Bitcoin that they had bought from bitcoin.com little did they know that Ver was scamming them by selling bcash to these newbies in the name of bitcoin.

Obviously he thought scamming the government (aka tax evasion) is the same as scamming a bunch of newbies and got caught.

[Helena Yu]

Although tax avoidance is completely legal, it is dangerous. You can freely do that but you have to make sure that you're a friend with the government. If not, there's always a reason for them to give you headache. There's always something for which you'd be held accountable.

Roger Ver did tax evasion, not tax avoidance.

He didn't report all of the true capital gains he made. If he did tax avoidance, he need to report all the gains to IRS, but he could make a fake story by saying it's a charity money for non-profit business or other thing that didn't get/very low tax.

Many rich people try to evade as much tax as they can it’s honestly crazy especially thinking just how much money they have.

This is not happen on rich people only, but it happens here too!

Someone who live in third world country and get paid enough here need to report their earnings.

[Z390]

What respect is there to have for someone who is so shameless?

This man used all his time on this forum to confuse newbies into buying BCH as the real Bitcoin, and his forum account was bombard with red trust, I believe this revealed the type of a person he his, sorry to say a cunt.

For someone like him I would rather not go near BCH at all, I don't feel the need to feel sorry for someone who is hellbent on confusing people that BCH is the real Bitcoin, he messed up for real, it is surprising that he still post on this forum.

CZ was way better than all these shameless beings if I have to support anyone in this crypto space it will be CZ and CZ only, do not compare CZ to Roger Very.

[MeGold666]

CZ was way better than all these shameless beings if I have to support anyone in this crypto space it will be CZ and CZ only, do not compare CZ to Roger Very.

Why would you support CZ, a criminal ? his exchange is known to sell paper-coins, manipulate prices and freezing random accounts for no reason.

I am surprised this whole Binance scam is still going. CEX are cryptocurrency cancer that needs to go away and be replaced by DEX.

Next arrest we need is the Tether printer owners, whole cryptocurrency market will go down for a while but at least we will have true valuation and not the inflated one.

[mindrust]

Holy crap. I've just heard the news. He already did time for selling firecrackers(!) and now they are getting him for tax evasion. He is really going full Al-Capone. Even though he is a jerk, somehow I feel bad for this guy. Maybe because in his early crypto days he was a hardcore bitcoiner. Even Andreas thanked him in his book which means he used to be doing something right. It all went down the hill the moment he became a bcash supporter. He could have become a rockstar of crypto if he had played his cards right.

Hopefully he won't pull a McAfee on himself.

Then the part where he changed citizenship and was required to pay exit tax - like WTF? The country bullies you, you decide you don't want to live there anymore, so they want you to pay them for leaving? What kind of law is that? I'm sure many people aren't even aware of such rule.

I've heard that before. That's real. The US is beyond fucked up. You can't toss away your US citizenship unless you pay a fee and have their approval. Insane.

[bitmover]

CZ was way better than all these shameless beings if I have to support anyone in this crypto space it will be CZ and CZ only, do not compare CZ to Roger Very.

Why would you support CZ, a criminal ? his exchange is known to sell paper-coins, manipulate prices and freezing random accounts for no reason.

I am surprised this whole Binance scam is still going. CEX are cryptocurrency cancer that needs to go away and be replaced by DEX.

I think you are mistaken about CZ and Binance.

Binance wasn't always this empire. It was a veery good exchange which didn't require any kyc to withdrawal up to 2 btc per day until late 2021.
He didn't scam anyone like FTX. He also created a coin which has some value, BNB. Better than bch

Well  CZ never run away with people's money, and is now guilt of money laundry. very different from other known scammers.

[DaveF]

As the saying goes there are 2 things you can't avoid Death & Taxes.

Creative accounting only goes so far, and if the amounts reported are accurate then yes you are going to get yourself arrested. Probably more so since he was changing his citizenship to a country known for loose tax laws and no extradition for a lot of things. Had he been staying in the US they probably would have just started freezing accounts. But this was looking like he was going to run.

If I sell anything for a profit the government gets it's cut. If it's $200 and I don't pay my $50 on it they will probably never notice. $200 million, yeah they are going to catch that.

-Dave

[MeGold666]

I think you are mistaken about CZ and Binance.

I know him and his business too well. Avoid.

[nutildah]

The US authorities have detained both Samourai developers and Roger Ver within a single week.  Some might see this as mere coincidence, but I believe it sends a clear message.  The state is officially declaring a war on cryptocurrencies.  Expect further arrests in the future.  

The DoJ has kicked the hornet's nest, and the swarm is headed towards us.  

Nope, his arrest has nothing to do with the state of bitcoin whatsoever. It has to do with him thinking he could avoid corporation tax by obtaining income in denominations of bitcoin.

https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/04/30/roger-ver-indicted-for-tax-fraud/

"Even though Ver was not then a U.S. citizen, he was still legally required to report to the IRS and pay tax on certain distributions such as dividends from MemoryDealers and Agilestar, which were U.S. corporations," said the DOJ."

I'm not a fan of taxes or fuckery like an "exit tax" but please let's stop introducing "us vs. them" paranoia unnecessarily. We've already been dealing with it for over a decade now.

We live in a clown world where you can be a citizen of another country and the US can get you arrested and extradited there. They can also imprison you for alleged crimes committed against its monetary policy which is another joke of a law.

If they have some kind of extradition policy/treaty in place, which means its a 2-way street. America would send a wanted Spaniard back to Spain if they were asked politely.

There clearly is a DoJ-wide mandate to target crypto

Is Ver really an influential/credible figure in the world of crypto anymore, though? I'd argue not.

He's a free-thinker and a freedom-lover, somebody who recognizes that something is terribly wrong with the world, and wants to do something about it.

I personally don't think Bitcoin Cash helped the world in any way, but kudos to you for looking for the positives.

[PrivacyG]

Why would you support CZ, a criminal ? his exchange is known to sell paper-coins, manipulate prices and freezing random accounts for no reason.

I am no big fan of Centralized Exchanges, but they are much more straight forward for a Newbie than a Decentralized Exchange and it shows.  Look how many people have an account on Binance versus the liquidity of a Decentralized Exchange.  It is an awful difference.

Binance was awesome a few years ago for new people.  They gave the Newbies enough time to get accustomed to the Markets and move on to Decentralized Exchanges since there was no Know Your Customer obligation.  On my own account, I ONLY deposited Monero and I never had a single issue with them.  I heard stories of people who deposited Mixer funds and had a problem, but Monero funds were not questioned.  Not in my case at least, and I deposited a lot of it.

I do not know about the other accusations you make.  At one point, it was TradeOgre, Binance and a few other Instant Exchanges leading the Centralized Exchanges top choices of Bitcoin Talk users for a good reason.  What happened recently with Binance obliging every body to doing Know Your Customer and all the other crap, I do not know.  Once they announced this I decided to move on permanently from the subject so I am unaware of later events.  But coincidence or not, they decided to turn 'more friendly to the Governments' pretty close to the point they were accused and sentenced.  So maybe the choice to enforce Know Your Customer was to save their own butts from the missiles coming.  I have no idea.

Anyway.  My point was.  Binance was not bad at all until they started to align with all the other Centralized Exchanges and enforced Know Your Customer.

[Rabbitqt]

Eh indifferent about Ver, yes he shilled BCH but honestly if Ver wasn't behind BCH it could of actually being a success partner to BTC... With that said, if his broken the law then he deserves whats coming for him!

[MeGold666]

I ONLY deposited Monero and I never had a single issue with them.

The problem occurred when people were trying to withdraw Monero, they used many excuses as to why they stopped withdrawals - the funniest one was "Network congestion" - when there was no network congestion and anyone with a half-brain knew they lied.

Someone from Monero community even made a tracking graph of the withdrawals being stopped, it's hilarious.

Binance = Scam, no one will change my mind about this because they were caught numerous times selling paper-coins (coins they don't have) and lying about issues when people were trying to withdraw and they didn't have the coins.

I really don't know how people can trust them when they were caught lying, they were caught lying to customers and to authorities.
Even if you never had problems with them, just know they lie to customers and that's a big red flag for me.

[Lucius]

And what is the real lesson of this story? If you owe money to the IRS don't go to Spain because they have become specialized in US citizens on the run from the law

~snip~
Hopefully he won't pull a McAfee on himself.

That possibility always exists, they say that Spanish prisons have a very bad effect on US citizens when they think about returning to their homeland.


Besides, why does anyone call Roger Bitcoin Jesus when he got a new nickname a long time ago?

[Alphakilo]

I have massive respect for the man Roger. I have read his history and the excellent job he did with bitcoin in its early days. However, as far as I know, no one is above the law and it must be respected. And from what theymos has written about him, he seem like a great guy who kinda lost his way. I think he may have made a lot of mistakes and burnt a lot of bridges in his pursuits which did not align with BTC. We seeing cyberpunk fiction beginning to play out just like in an idealist novel.

[Abiky]

The US authorities have detained both Samourai developers and Roger Ver within a single week.  Some might see this as mere coincidence, but I believe it sends a clear message.  The state is officially declaring a war on cryptocurrencies.  Expect further arrests in the future. 

The DoJ has kicked the hornet's nest, and the swarm is headed towards us. 

It's not surprising to see a country like the US taking a strong approach against crypto industry players. Especially when it knows crypto can be used to circumvent sanctions among other things. This is just the beginning of a long battle between crypto and the "deep state". I was shocked to read about Roger Ver being arrested for tax evasion.

If that's the case, I wonder who will be the next victim? Vitalik Buterin, perhaps? With SEC chairman Gary Gensler classifying ETH as a security, Vitalik could be charged by selling unregistered securities. Also he could be charged against money laundering and tax evasion by creating a platform that enables "decentralized" mixers. These are crazy times we're living into. I sure hope things will get better in the US after the 2024 elections. Anything's possible, right?