On April 30, 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) detained Roger Ver, a trailblazing investor in bitcoin, on accusations of tax evasion and submitting fraudulent tax returns. The following update is accompanied by a statement from Bitcoin.com regarding the allegations against the company’s founder.

Bitcoin Investor Roger Ver Charged With Tax Evasion
According to the DOJ press release, by 2014, Roger Ver and his companies, Memorydealers and Agilestar, reportedly controlled over 131,000 bitcoins, each valued at about $871. Memorydealers and Agilestar allegedly maintained control of approximately 73,000 of those bitcoins. However, he is accused of supplying misleading information to legal and valuation experts to minimize these assets’ declared value.

This alleged misstatement, according to the U.S. government, resulted in underreported company tax returns and the evasion of the mandatory “exit tax” on capital gains from his worldwide assets. Ver was apprehended in Spain, and the DOJ declared that the government intends to extradite him to face trial in the United States.

Statement From Bitcoin.com
“In light of the recent news, we want to underscore that these legal matters pertain solely to Roger and have no bearing on Bitcoin.com. While we cannot comment on the specifics of the allegations, we stand by Roger and his contributions to the cryptocurrency space,” a Bitcoin.com spokesperson told our newsdesk.

“Importantly, these legal proceedings do not affect our operations or the services we provide. Bitcoin.com remains steadfast in our mission of making money accessible to everyone, everywhere, without limits. Our commitment to this mission remains unwavering. This litigation does not affect our operations or the services we provide. Our non-custodial wallet ensures that users always maintain control of their funds,” the spokesperson added.

COUNT TWO
(Conspiracy· to Operate an Unlicensed Money Transmitting Business)
The Grand Jury further charges:
31. The allegations contained in paragraphs 1 through 28 of this Indictment are
repeated and realleged as if fully set forth herein.
32. From at least in or about 2015 up to and including in or about February 2024, in the
Southern District of New York and elsewhere, KEONNE RODRIGUEZ and WILLIAM
LONERGAN HILL, the defendants, and others known and unknown, willfully and knowingly
combined, conspired, confederated, and agreed together and with each other to commit an offense
against the United States, to wit, operation of an unlicensed money transmitting business, in
violation of Title 18, United States Code, Sections 1960(b )(1 )(B) and (b )(1 )(C).
33. It was a part and object of the conspiracy that KEONNE RODRIGUEZ and
WILLIAM LONERGAN HILL, the defendants, and others known and unknown, would and did
knowingly conduct, control, manage, supervise, direct, and own all and prut of an unlicensed
money transmitting business, which affected interstate and foreign commerce, and (i) failed to
comply with the money transmitting business registration requirements under Section 5330 of Title
31, United States Code, and regulations prescribed under such section, and (ii) otherwise involved
the transportation and transmission of funds that were known to the defendants to have been
derived from a criminal offense and were intended to be used to promote and support unlawful
activity, to wit, RODRIGUEZ and HILL conducted, controlled, managed, supervised, directed,
and owned all or part of Samourai, a business that transferred funds on behalf of the public, without meeting the Federal registration requirements set forth for money transmitting businesses...

In a recently published paper, PayPal’s Blockchain Research Group (BRG) proposed “the possibility for a more sustainable future” in Bitcoin mining. The investigation revealed that, as of April 2, data estimates the annualized emissions to be over 85 million metric tons of carbon dioxide due to Bitcoin’s Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus mechanism:

The paper suggests routing on-chain transactions to “green miners” via low transaction fees with a BTC reward “locked” in a multisig payout address. The rewards would serve as an incentive to mine these transactions, as only green miners would be eligible to receive them.

The solution is based on identifying miners that use low-emissions energy sources. After identification, their public keys, referred to as “green keys,” would be used to reward miners with Bitcoin in a trust-independent method through a “1-of-n multisig script.” As a result, the payout address would allow the miners with green keys to claim the rewards.