Roger Ver (1979–)

On April 30, 2024, Spanish authorities arrested Roger Ver on a U.S. extradition request. The DOJ indictment alleges he under-reported the value of his Bitcoin holdings when he renounced U.S. citizenship in 2014, evading approximately $48 million in exit-tax obligations. In October 2025 he resolved the case through a deferred prosecution agreement, paying nearly $50 million in back taxes, penalties, and interest.

Thirteen years earlier, in 2011, Ver had been one of Bitcoin’s earliest angel investors — putting seed money into BitInstant, Blockchain.info, Kraken, Bitpay, Bitcoin Magazine, and Ripple. His Silicon Valley computer-parts company Memory Dealers became one of the first established retailers to accept Bitcoin. The nickname “Bitcoin Jesus” — sometimes self-applied, sometimes given to him by journalists — emerged from his evangelistic conference style.

By 2017 he had become the most visible advocate of the Bitcoin Cash hard fork, framing BCH as “the real Bitcoin Satoshi described” on the bitcoin.com domain he had acquired.

Roger Keith Ver was born January 27, 1979 in San Jose, California. He renounced U.S. citizenship in 2014 and acquired citizenship from Saint Kitts and Nevis.

Memory Dealers and entry into Bitcoin (2002–2011)

Ver founded Memory Dealers in 2002, a Silicon Valley computer-parts e-commerce business that grew into a multi-million-dollar operation through the 2000s. In early 2011 he encountered Bitcoin via the Free Talk Live podcast, recognized it as fitting his pre-existing libertarian / Austrian-economics commitments, and within months had begun making large purchases. Memory Dealers became one of the first established retailers to accept Bitcoin payments, predating most of the merchant-adoption wave that followed.

Angel investing (2011–2014)

Through 2011-2014 Ver was an early investor in many of the foundational Bitcoin businesses of that era:

At the time he was widely characterized as the “angel investor of Bitcoin,” and his evangelistic style extended from conference talks to YouTube videos.

In 2014 Ver renounced his US citizenship and acquired citizenship from Saint Kitts and Nevis, citing tax and political reasons. The renunciation event later became a structural element of the 2024 US tax-fraud charges (see below).

Block-size war and Bitcoin Cash (2015–2017)

By 2015 Ver had positioned bitcoin.com (the domain) as a public platform advocating for larger block sizes. Through the block-size war Ver was one of the loudest voices arguing that Bitcoin’s then-1 MB cap was preventing the chain from serving as an everyday payment method. When Bitcoin XT (2015) and Bitcoin Classic (2016) failed to activate, the larger-block faction split off via the Bitcoin Cash hard fork on August 1, 2017; the SegWit2x compromise collapsed that November. Ver was the most visible public advocate; bitcoin.com became the principal outlet promoting BCH, and Ver’s framing of BCH as “the real Bitcoin Satoshi described” generated sustained controversy in the broader Bitcoin community. The labor behind the fork was divided: Ver handled the public branding, Jihan Wu provided mining-pool support, and Amaury Séchet implemented the protocol itself.

US tax-fraud charges (2024–2025)

On April 30, 2024, Spanish authorities arrested Ver on a U.S. extradition request. The U.S. Department of Justice indictment alleges mail fraud, tax evasion, and false tax returns related to the 2014 expatriation event — specifically, that Ver under-reported the value of his bitcoin holdings at the time of the citizenship renunciation, evading approximately $48 million in U.S. exit-tax obligations. On October 14, 2025, the Justice Department announced that Ver had entered into a deferred prosecution agreement. Ver acknowledged that when he filed his expatriation-related returns in May 2016 he did not report all of his bitcoins or pay the required capital gains tax on their constructive sale, and that the omission was willful. He paid nearly $50 million in back taxes, penalties, and interest, and the government moved to dismiss the indictment.

Career timeline

Significance to Bitcoin

Ver’s record matters to Bitcoin Institute for three roles. First, his 2011-era investments into the founding generation of Bitcoin businesses materially shaped which projects survived their seed phase.

Second, he was the principal public face of the larger-block faction during the 2015–2017 dispute, and his post-2017 promotion of BCH on bitcoin.com is the dominant editorial channel through which the BCH side of that history reached general audiences.

Third, his 2024 arrest opened a criminal case over the tax treatment of expatriated Bitcoin wealth, and the case was resolved in October 2025 through a deferred prosecution agreement rather than a court ruling.