Roger Ver? The former CEO of Bitcoin.com?
How did Roger Ver get interested in this sector of digital currencies? Was he a bright student or a college dropout? Why did he choose to invest only in Bitcoin?
What was his reason for investing in bitcoin-related startups? Did he have a peaceful life or a life embroiled in controversies? Which was his first company? Let’s answer all these questions in the article below.
Who is Roger Ver?
Roger Ver is an eminent personality in the field of digital currency. He was one of the early investors in Bitcoin and also in startups that were Bitcoin related. His support for Bitcoin adoption has met with positive reviews from all quarters. Hence, he is also called the “Bitcoin Jesus.”
Roger Ver, nowadays, is promoting Bitcoin Cash. Roger Ver was born on 27th January 1979 in San Jose, California, in the United States of America. Currently, he is residing in Tokyo, Japan. A college dropout from De Anza College after a year, Roger Ver dropped out from the college only to pursue his business interests.
He identifies himself as an anarcho-capitalist, peace advocate, libertarian, and an advocate for voluntarism and individualism. He has been in the news for both bad and good communication. In 2005, Roger sold explosives e-commerce website E-bay and served a sentence of 10 months.
He was later found guilty of three other felony charges. He pleaded guilty to the same mistakes but moved to Japan the same year. He was also denied Visa from the US government in 2015, hearing that he might become an illegal immigrant.
Though he has been a citizen of Saint Kitts and Nevis since the year 2014, his track record of leaving the country regularly made the government take this step. But belatedly, in the same year, his Visa got approved, and he visited the United States in 2016 to speak at a conference in Denver, Colorado.
Besides business, his interest also lies in jiu-jitsu, Brazilian martial arts. Many people also conferred with him that this form of martial arts is one of his major passions in life. You can see many videos of Ver on YouTube, where he is competing in BJJ world championships. He is also a brown belt holder in Brazilian jiu-jitsu.
In 2018, he was ranked 36 in Fortune’s ‘The Ledger’s 40 under 40’. This achievement was bestowed to him for transforming business at the leading edge of finance and technology. He served as the CEO of Bitcoin.com until August 1st, 2019; after that point, he transitioned to the company's executive chairman.
Besides all these, Roger Ver is a humanitarian and a social worker. In late 2013, he donated more than 1 million US dollars worth of Bitcoin to the Foundation of Economic Education.
Before cryptocurrency, what was his contentious past?
Before cryptocurrency, Roger Ver worked as the CEO of MemoryDealers.com from 1999-2012. He attempted to foray into politics by contesting for the Californian State Assembly as a Libertarian party candidate.
In 2002, he got embroiled in the most significant controversy of his life. He sold 14 pounds of explosives as firecrackers on the eminent e-commerce website. Those explosives were identified in ‘Pest Control Report 2000’. Roger had brought around 49 pounds of these explosives and had stored them in a residential apartment building.
He used to mail the explosives to the customers who brought them through the U.S postal service. He later pleaded guilty to illegally storing explosives, selling them without a license, and mailing the same bombs to different people. The Federal court sentenced him to ten months in Federal prison.
How was he introduced to Bitcoin?
He was introduced to Bitcoin by Mark Edge, the host of Free Talk Live radio. One day, when Mark Edge was discussing Bitcoin on the radio, Roger Ver heard it. After hearing it, he instantly became interested in investing in this new digital currency at that time.
Roger Ver claims that he has been interested in Bitcoin since 2011 and has often called it the most predominant invention in the history of the globe since the advent of the Internet. During his early days, he integrated Bitcoin payment into his company Memorydealers.com. This attribute allowed his customers to make their transactions through Bitcoin.
He started to collect Bitcoin like this and amassed more than 400,000 Bitcoins as per some estimates. Roger Ver nearly reduced his collection through payments and funding projects and diverted his sole attention towards spreading the word about Bitcoin and its advantages.
His financial approach helped numerous people launch startups and projects related to Bitcoin. He was also an early investor in most of the blockchain-related projects, which included Kraken and Ripple.
Why is Roger Ver hailed as the “Bitcoin Jesus”?
Because of his earlier advocacy methods and constant support of Bitcoin, he gets hailed as the “Bitcoin Jesus.” It was because of the support and financial approach of Roger Ver that many people started to show their interest in investing in Bitcoin.
His company MoneyDealers.com was the first company that started to accept payments in terms of Bitcoin. His investment in Blockchain-related projects also earned recognition in the digital market industry.
In 2012, he started bitcoinstore.com, which enclosed thousands of items available for purchase with Bitcoin. In 2015, he hosted the most significant Bitcoin AMA on Reddit.com. He became the CEO of bitcoin.com and owned its domain name.
He gained control of the whole bitcoin.com in April 2014. In 2012, he was continually organizing bitcoin meetups, one of which was held in Sunnyvale. He is also one of the founders of the Bitcoin Foundation. He has always strived to place Bitcoin as a rival to fiat currencies.
He always recommended larger block sizes and was also one of the leading proponents behind it. He fully supported the development of Bitcoin XT as a hard fork method which will help increase its value.
He was heavily praised for his committed involvement during the June 2011 Bitcoin Price Cash. Due to his participation in uplifting Bitcoin from various situations, he earned the name the “Bitcoin Jesus” and has duly justified it.
His investments in Ripple and Kraken in brief.
Roger Ver started investing in Bitcoin in early 2011. The first investment he made was on Bitinstant, owned by Charlie Shrem. Because of his investment, the company was financially stable to hire a designer and another programmer.
He also invested more than a million U.S dollars into new Bitcoin-related startups, including Ripple, Kraken, Blockchain.info, and Bitpay.
Kraken is one of the biggest and busiest exchanges in trade volume and has registered a trading volume of more than 85 million U.S dollars in 2018. It has expanded to more than 200 countries, housing over 4 million clients. Kraken has a vision of developing more and providing additional financial services and products for this digital currency industry.
Today, Ripple is a digital currency that has been continuously climbing the charts and is giving stiff competition to both Bitcoin and Ethereum. It has a faster processing network. Ripple is a centralized platform, and it cannot be mined. But it has an interface with much more efficient energy than Bitcoin’s extreme energy consumption.
All these attributes wouldn’t have been possible today if Roger Ver had invested in some other platforms rather than Kraken and Ripple.
Latest controversy on Bitcoin cash and its establishment:
Roger Ver had faced legal action by always confusing the investors between Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash. He was even pressed with charges of fraud of intentionally exploiting novice investors. Bitcoin Cash was forked from Bitcoin in August 2017.
These discrepancies arose primarily due to the similar logos housed by Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash. Many opine that this step was created to confuse investors between Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash.
Many investors initially were confused and brought Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin. This attribute resulted in a lawsuit and created an uproar in the community for banning Bitcoin Cash. Ver was often called the culprit as he opined Bitcoin Cash was the real Bitcoin.
This advertisement was unpopular, and the public proved it to be true. As per many accurate reports, Bitcoin Cash is nowhere near and cannot usurp Bitcoin even in the coming days. This point was often reminded of a controversy that Roger Ver himself created.
Some people also opine that Bitcoin Cash is getting widely accepted nowadays due to this marketing technique of Roger Ver.
The latest split of @bitcoin on Twitter:
The latest news is that the Twitter account Bitcoin has deleted dozens of tweets in which Bitcoin Cash got mentioned. This factor is guessed by many as a step to revamp the whole company after it announced to launch of a new peer-to-peer digital currency exchange.
Since Roger Ver gained control of the Bitcoin website, the company has been embroiled in many controversies. Instead of Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash got extensively promoted since he took over the company.
In most of the tweets which got deleted, it has been seen that they were mentioning the Lightning Network or criticizing Twitter and its CEO. Analysts opine that these tweets were removed to avoid legal trouble on Bitcoin.
Some even opine that this was a sign that Roger Ver was finally capitulating. Some also opine that these might be the ideas of the new CEO of bitcoin.com. The latter can be considered the newly appointed CEO of bitcoin.com; Stefan Rush previously worked as a director of corporate and business development on bitcoin.com.
The company still hasn’t stated Roger Ver’s duties, but it has been learned that Stefan Rust will focus on developing the new products and services it launches in the coming days. While many have speculated the same to be the new peer-to-peer digital currency exchange that the company announced a few days ago.
The final nail in the coffin would be:
Roger Ver is the “Bitcoin Jesus” and the “Bitcoin Judas.” He is duly responsible for the success Bitcoin gained in its initial days. But it is also true that it was because of him that the company faced so many legal actions and acquired the center stage in many controversies.
It is justified in the article what steps of Roger Ver were responsible for the success of Bitcoin. Similarly, it is also mentioned what the levels that were a fire in the stomach for the company were.
