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Related Roger Ver was also indicted and arrested today: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/early-bitcoin-investor-charged-tax-fraud https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/

by nikcub 2y ago

Related Roger Ver was also indicted and arrested today: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/early-bitcoin-investor-charged-tax-fraud https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/early-bitcoin-investor-charge... The real crime there was selling 131k Bitcoin at ~$800 in order to back Bitcoin Cash. That's a ~$7B upside he missed because of block size politics.

blackhaj7 2y ago
Crypto was trash but it did result in subtitles like 'Man Known as “Bitcoin Jesus” Evaded Nearly $50M in Taxes' on government websites which is frankly excellent
pcwalton 2y ago
Well, the real crime there was blatant tax evasion. It always astounds me what these kinds of people think they can get away with. In this case, a guy going by the name of "Bitcoin Jesus" reported that he didn't own any bitcoins, and expected the US government to take that declaration at face value. Trying to defraud the US government in such a blatant way as to insult its intelligence usually doesn't end well.
- nullc 2y ago
  I dunno, look at the long list of things he hasn't been charged with: He laundered money for the MTGox hacker ( https://www.coindesk.com/consensus-magazine/2023/06/09/where-the-mt-gox-money-went-new-details-in-the-btc-e-exchange-case/ https://www.coindesk.com/consensus-magazine/2023/06/09/where... ), he promoted numerous ponzi schemes (including ones with billion dollar scale losses), he essentially robbed Coinflex to the tune of 42 million dollars and put them into bankruptcy, took some 20 million dollars from genesis trading. Even with the tax evasion thing-- as soon as he did it he setup a 'passports for bitcoin' site promoting buying St. Kitts passports for the purpose of evading US taxes. It wasn't a revelation that he evaded exit taxes. Had someone without hundreds of millions done the same thing they would have been charged a decade ago, but to make charges stick against the well resourced is another matter. In this case they apparently felt they had to raid his communications with his attorneys to get the job done (notice the indictment is stuffed full of what plainly appears to be privileged communications). All stuff that is widely known to the public--- over and over again it seems the world has taught him that he can do whatever he thinks will benefit him and suffer little negative consequences. nikcub, if you read the indictment carefully, it sounds like he didn't sell most of those coins until 2017 (which makes sense on the whole backing BCH front) -- which would have been a much better Bitcoin price. BCH OTOH is trading for about 11% of what it was then. So it sounds like instead of paying a few million in exit taxes, he instead created a much larger tax liability and then spent much of the proceeds on a losing long shot bet. I mean, I guess kudos to him for eventually putting his money where his mouth was.

by nikcub 2y ago

blackhaj7 2y ago

Crypto was trash but it did result in subtitles like 'Man Known as “Bitcoin Jesus” Evaded Nearly $50M in Taxes' on government websites which is frankly excellent

pcwalton 2y ago

Well, the real crime there was blatant tax evasion. It always astounds me what these kinds of people think they can get away with. In this case, a guy going by the name of "Bitcoin Jesus" reported that he didn't own any bitcoins, and expected the US government to take that declaration at face value. Trying to defraud the US government in such a blatant way as to insult its intelligence usually doesn't end well.

nullc 2y ago
I dunno, look at the long list of things he hasn't been charged with: He laundered money for the MTGox hacker ( https://www.coindesk.com/consensus-magazine/2023/06/09/where-the-mt-gox-money-went-new-details-in-the-btc-e-exchange-case/ https://www.coindesk.com/consensus-magazine/2023/06/09/where... ), he promoted numerous ponzi schemes (including ones with billion dollar scale losses), he essentially robbed Coinflex to the tune of 42 million dollars and put them into bankruptcy, took some 20 million dollars from genesis trading. Even with the tax evasion thing-- as soon as he did it he setup a 'passports for bitcoin' site promoting buying St. Kitts passports for the purpose of evading US taxes. It wasn't a revelation that he evaded exit taxes. Had someone without hundreds of millions done the same thing they would have been charged a decade ago, but to make charges stick against the well resourced is another matter. In this case they apparently felt they had to raid his communications with his attorneys to get the job done (notice the indictment is stuffed full of what plainly appears to be privileged communications). All stuff that is widely known to the public--- over and over again it seems the world has taught him that he can do whatever he thinks will benefit him and suffer little negative consequences. nikcub, if you read the indictment carefully, it sounds like he didn't sell most of those coins until 2017 (which makes sense on the whole backing BCH front) -- which would have been a much better Bitcoin price. BCH OTOH is trading for about 11% of what it was then. So it sounds like instead of paying a few million in exit taxes, he instead created a much larger tax liability and then spent much of the proceeds on a losing long shot bet. I mean, I guess kudos to him for eventually putting his money where his mouth was.