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Roger Ver

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Roger Ver
December 2016
BornFebruary 1979
San Jose, California, U.S.
NationalitySaint Kitts and Nevis
Other namesBitcoin Jesus[1]
Occupation(s)Entrepreneur
CEO
Known forInvesting in Bitcoin, becoming one of the world's first "virtual millionaire"
MovementLibertarianism
Voluntaryism
Anarcho-capitalism
Websiterogerver.com

Roger Ver (b. ~1979) is a Kittitian/Nevisian early investor in bitcoin related startups. He was formerly an American citizen. He was born and lived in Silicon Valley.[2] He now resides in Japan. He has been a prominent supporter of bitcoin adoption and sees bitcoin as a mean to promote economic freedom. He identifies as a libertarian, an anarcho-capitalist, peace advocate and advocates for individualism and voluntaryism.[3]

Early life

He was born in San Jose and raised by Christians. He left home when he was 16 after a property dispute with his father.[3] He attended De Anza College for a year, dropping out to pursue his business interests.

Career

He initially did well with a computer parts business, MemoryDealers.com, which saw him become a millionaire by the time he was 25.[1] He was the CEO of MemoryDealers.com from 1999 until 2012.[4] In 2000, he attempted to enter politics by running for California State Assembly as a candidate for the Libertarian Party.[2]

He moved to Japan in 2006.[1] He became a citizen of Saint Kitts and Nevis and renounced his United States citizenship in 2014.[5][6][1][7] In 2015, he was denied a visa to reenter the United States by the U.S. Embassy in Barbados, which claimed that he had not sufficiently proven ties outside of the United States that would motivate him to leave at the end of his visit, causing fears he might become an illegal immigrant.[6][8][7][9] Later in the same year his visa was approved by the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, and he visited the United States in June 2016 to speak at a conference in Denver, Colorado.[10][5]

In June 2016, Ver was appointed the chairman of the Cryptocurrency Advisory Board for MGT Capital Investments. MGT aims to improve cybersecurity and is headed by John McAfee.[11]

Bitcoin

Ver began investing in bitcoins in early 2011.[2] The first investment he made was for Charlie Shrem’s Bitinstant.[12] Ver's investment allowed the company to hire a designer and another programmer.[13] He invested over a million dollars into new bitcoin related startups including Blockchain, Ripple, BitPay[6] and Kraken.[1] In 2011, Ver's company Memorydealers was the first to accept bitcoin as payment.[14]

His early advocacy for bitcoin earned him the moniker of Bitcoin Jesus.[2] In 2012, he created bitcoinstore.com with hundreds of thousands of items available for purchase with bitcoin. In May 2014, an old email account used by Ver was hacked and used in a failed attempt to ransom bitcoin.[15] In late 2015, Ver hosted the largest bitcoin AMA on Reddit.[16] He owns the domain name "bitcoin.com".

In 2012, Ver was organising bitcoin meetups in Sunnyvale.[17] For five years Ver paid thousands of dollars a month for Bitcoin advertisements on over 100 radio stations. He put up the first billboard in the world to promote Bitcoin in May 2011. He is one of five founders of the Bitcoin Foundation. Ver wants bitcoin to rival major fiat currencies.[18] He is one of the main proponents of a larger block size.[18] He supported the development of Bitcoin XT as a hard fork method towards an increase. Ver and his high school friend Jesse Powell attempted to re-establish the Mt Gox exchange during the June 2011 bitcoin price crash.[17]

He writes opinion pieces for bitcoin-related websites and online forums. He has advocated for the widespread adoption of bitcoin software client that allows for an increase in the block chain block size limit. Ver strongly disagrees with the block size limit because it is contrary to his preferred strategy of rapid and widespread growth of bitcoin. Ver wants the use of this currency to be so widespread that an alternative cannot supplant bitcoin's first-mover advantage.[19] He warns of a possible, official government controlled alternative to bitcoin of having a limited window of opportunity to become widely popular before bitcoin's potential mass adoption occurs.

Selling explosives

In 2002, Ver pleaded guilty after selling explosives, marketed as Pest Control Report 2000, on eBay, which the U.S. Department of Justice described as "dealing in explosives without a license", and he was sentenced to 10 months in federal prison.[1][8][20][21] The Missouri company, Max 2000 Inc. that had manufactured Pest Control Report 2000, agreed to cease selling the agricultural firecrackers in January 2003 after selling more than one million of them.[22] The company had been selling the product illegally to fireworks wholesalers and retailers from early 1998.[23] Pest Control Report 2000 had been used nationally to control infestations of birds. The explosives were banned because they could cause serious injuries or death.[23]

Political positions

He believes that the violent interventions of governments should be replaced by voluntary human interactions in the free market. Ver identifies with the political philosophy of individualism.[19]

Donations

In 2012, Ver helped the establishment of the Bitcoin Foundation with a large donation. In late 2013, Ver donated more than $1 million worth of bitcoin to the Foundation for Economic Education.[2] Ver has donated more than $20K to antiwar.com.[24]

Personal life

While in prison Ver taught himself Japanese. According to an interview he gave in 2016, Ver describes Brazilian Jiu Jitsu as one of his major passions in life.[25]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Jason Clenfield; Pavel Alpeyev (16 June 2014). "'Bitcoin Jesus' Calls Rich to Tax-Free Tropical Paradise". Bloomberg. Retrieved 25 December 2016.
  2. ^ a b c d e Ansuya Harjani (2 December 2013). "Meet 'Bitcoin Jesus,' a virtual currency millionaire". CNBC. Retrieved 25 December 2016.
  3. ^ a b Eric Bovim (10 March 2014). "The ballad of "Bitcoin Jesus": The tech millionaire who fears for his life". Salon. The Associated Press. Retrieved 27 December 2016.
  4. ^ Cyrus Farivar (1 August 2015). "Bitcoin investor who renounced US citizenship now can't get back in". ArsTechnica. Wired Media Group. Retrieved 28 December 2016.
  5. ^ a b Scott, Michael (2016-06-03). "Roger Ver at 5280 Feet: On Bitcoin and His Life Journey". BTC Manager. Retrieved 2016-08-05.
  6. ^ a b c Wood, Robert W. (Jan 13, 2015). "Citizenship Renunciation Fee Hiked 422%, And You Can't Come Back". Forbes.
  7. ^ a b Minsky, David (Jan 16, 2015). "U.S. Won't Let "Bitcoin Jesus" Who Renounced His Citizenship Come To Miami For Conference". Miami New Times (blog).
  8. ^ a b Sparkes, Matthew (Jan 7, 2015). "Millionaire 'Bitcoin Jesus' denied entry to the US: An early Bitcoin adopter and libertarian who became known as Bitcoin Jesus for funding several startups and handing out free coins has been denied entry into the US, despite having been born in the country, after renouncing his citizenship". Telegraph (UK).
  9. ^ Farivar, Cyrus (Jan 7, 2015). "Bitcoin investor who renounced US citizenship now can't get back in: Roger Ver gave up US passport in favor of St. Kitts last year". Ars Technica.
  10. ^ "Message from Roger Ver". September 20, 2015.
  11. ^ "MGT Appoints Roger Ver as the Chairman of its Newly Formed "Cryptocurrency Advisory Board"". Press Release. PR Newswire Association. 13 June 2016. Retrieved 25 December 2016.
  12. ^ Adrianne Jeffries (13 December 2011). "Brooklyn-Based Bitcoin Startup BitInstant Raises Seed Round". Observer. Observer Media. Retrieved 28 December 2016.
  13. ^ Kyle Russell (29 January 2014). "Meet The 'Bitcoin Millionaire' Arrested For Allegedly Helping Silk Road Launder $US1 Million". Business Insider Australia. Allure Media. Retrieved 28 December 2016.
  14. ^ Robert McMillan (19 December 2013). "How Bitcoin Became the Honey Badger of Money". Wired. Conde Nast. Retrieved 25 January 2017.
  15. ^ Jon Southurst (24 May 2014). "How Roger Ver Got Hacked, and What He Did to Stop it". CoinDesk. Retrieved 25 December 2016.
  16. ^ Joseph Young (3 November 2015). "Reddit Bitcoin Censorship in Focus as 30 CEOs Join Roger Ver's AMA". The Coin Telegraph. Retrieved 25 December 2016.
  17. ^ a b Vigna, Paul; Michael J. Casey (2015). The Age of Cryptocurrency: How Bitcoin and Digital Money Are Challenging the Global Economic Order. St. Martin's Press. p. 178, 268. ISBN 146687306X. Retrieved 3 January 2017.
  18. ^ a b Kyle Torpey (22 September 2016). "Roger Ver Is Still Determined to Increase the Bitcoin Block Size Limit via a Hard Fork". Bitcoin Magazine. BTC Inc. Retrieved 25 December 2016.
  19. ^ a b Roger Ver (16 May 2016). "My Dinner with Adam Back". news.bitcoin. Bitcoin.com. Retrieved 21 January 2017.
  20. ^ "San Jose, California Man Pleads Guilty to Selling Explosives on eBay". U.S. Department of Justice, United States Attorney, Northern District of California. May 2, 2002. Archived from the original on February 13, 2015.
  21. ^ Max Raskin (13 April 2013). "Meet the Bitcoin Millionaires". Bloomberg. Retrieved 28 December 2016.
  22. ^ "Missouri firm to halt 'pest' firecracker sales". Deseret News. Deseret Digital Media. January 18, 2003. Retrieved January 3, 2017.
  23. ^ a b "Missouri Company Ordered To Stop Manufacturing and Selling Illegal Fireworks". Press Release. Consumer Product Safety Commission. January 17, 2003. Retrieved 3 January 2017.
  24. ^ "Bitcoin Transaction". Bitcoin blockchain. Blockchain.info. 20 January 2015. Retrieved 28 December 2016.
  25. ^ "20 questions with Roger Ver (Exclusive Interview)". steemit. Retrieved 3 January 2017.

"Episode 687: Buy This Passport". Planet Money. March 10, 2016.

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