What Makes ‘Bitcoin Jesus’ Roger Ver Tick?

get to talk to everyone. Fast forward to the recent past, and Roger Ver actually does talk to a lot of folks, just though while collecting their trash. He's instead been promoting bitcoin as the future of money and finance, so much

so that people started calling him Bitcoin Jesus. According to his website, he's one of the early investors in several bitcoin projects, including Cracking, Blockchain, dot Com, and Ripple, but in verse, which his enthusiasm away from Bitcoin and more towards something called bitcoin cash, which is an offshoot of the original cryptocurrency. Recently, Vera became entangled with crypto company Genesis. So what happens when Bitcoin Jesus speaks. Do people say

hallelujah or do they say deliver us from evil? Here to help me explore the life and work of Bitcoin Jesus is Bloomberg reporter Olga Karif. Olga, You've actually had a lot of access to Roger. You've interviewed him many times, You've known him over the years, You've talked to quite a bit. So just lay out the scene for us. What is he like? What should we know about his personality?

And about this person he's known as bitcoin Jesus because he actually found out about bitcoin way before most people even heard the word. He started buying bitcoin in Tleven when it traded for less than one dollar, and of course now it's trading over for over twenty one dollars um. And when he found out about bitcoin, he started telling

everybody about it. So there are stories so Fragier were essentially carry know about bitcoin at barbecues and house parties and pretty much he was talking about it everywhere he could get a chance to, and so he became known worldwide as Bitcoin Jesus. Maybe tell us a bit about his escapades within the space, because I'm curious about how he's been able to sustain this very interesting persona for the last decade or more. He is sort of very intense.

He has very strong opinions about things. And one of the things he's best known for is the creation of

bitcoin cash. So back in the word, debates and oin developers about how to scale bitcoin, and there were different ideas about how to scale the network, and Roger was a big believer that the main stream view of how to scale the network was wrong and didn't adhere to the vision that's the Toshiakamoto, the anonamous creator of bitcoin, had in mind, because the Toshi wanted bitcoin to be a transactional currency, and Roger felt like if this mainstream

idea of what bitcoin should become was implemented, and it would become more of a store of value, which is what bitcoin is today. And so he was part of a contingent that supported split off a version of bitcoin network called bitcoin cash, and of course bitcoin cash is still around, although it's a much smaller network than Bitcoin. I mean, Bitcoin has a market cap currently of I think something like four hundred fifty billion and bitcoin cash

is two and a half billion. But you know, it's a sizeable and an important cryptocurrency out there that he supports. So basically he has in the past laid out some views that maybe we're counter to what people at the time we're thinking, or maybe he was sort of being

provocative in in some sense. But I'm wondering what what the sense is from you of how the crypto community views him, largely speaking, because obviously the name Bitcoin Jesus or the nickname Bitcoin Jesus sort of has this connotation, this larger than life kind of tation to it. Absolutely,

it certainly does. So years ago, he was probably an example of sort of the mainstream bitcoin adopter who was somebody who was libertarian, opposed to government interference, somebody who essentially viewed cryptocurrency as a way to avoid government interference and regulation, you know, cryptocurrency as a lot of the early adopters, so it was a way to essentially move value around without government knowledge or regulation, which as we more recently, I think our scene is not quite how

it's it's working out. But um more recently I think his views have been viewed as more fringe as more institutions and retail investors had waited into the space. But he's obviously still a very well known figure in the crypto space. I like your use of the word fringe and just to explain how maybe the space has evolved

since those early early years. But tell us maybe a bit more of how characteristic or how exemplary his libertarian or anti government views are maybe of of other participants who had gotten in a really really long time ago, or even how prevalent views like that might still be in the space today. Or is is it really the case that this type of thinking has just sort of

been sidelined within the crypto space over the years. Roger's views, I think partially stemmed from the fact that when he was in his early turnies, he was convicted of illegally selling fireworks on eBay and he was actually put in jail and has a very dark view of US government. He actually after that he moved to Japan and and

then to send this send kids. But a lot of early bitcoin adopters were people who essentially felt that crypto was a way to financial freedom and allowed people to not depend on governments that might devalue your feat or do something something that could have ramifications for your savings

or for your way of life. And how this industry evolved was, you know, in the last three years maybe or so, more institutions actually from Wall Street started paying attention to crypto and stepping in and offering services or investing.

We've seen a few sort of public companies invest in bitcoin, and we've seen millions of retail investors step into crypto, and the space, like you said, has changed quite a bit from being sort of this very niche space with mostly you know, very geeky computer programmersh loving coins too. I wouldn't say completely mainstream, but close to mainstream market.

Of course, this whole space had been in a bear market for the last year or so, and that definitely has pushed back adoption and raised questions about what it's going to look like once regulators are done shaping it. But I think we are very very far removed from this niche libertarian space that it used to be. Okay, and then just one more thing about the way he is thinking about the world. Can you tell us about

his views on the blockchain. He strongly believes that essentially crypto should be used uh in transactions to buy a sandwich, or to even to buy a car, and so he's been promoting bitcoin cash for use in transactions, and he is very much unhappy with the way bitcoin has developed. He is no longer promoting bitcoin itself. Interesting enough, um, you know, because bitcoin has emerged as more of a store of value and he believes this is not what

crypt or should be about. He of course has a lot of opponents in the in that view, but that's what he believes. Up next, more with Boomberg reporter all the caif on Roger Verse dealings with coin Flex and Genesis.

We'll be right back, all got We know that ver has been entangled with Genesis, which also has been in the news quite a bit recently as we know now remember the Winkle Boss brothers have been waging a public fight against Genesis, even calling for Barry Silber, the founder of the digital currency group I hired, to step down as as CEO. But they claim that he owes them millions of dollars for some trades that he had with them. So can you tell us about what's going on between

the two of them in this feud that they're having publicly? Sure? So, Genesis has a landing arm and a trading arm, and the landing arm recently went bankrupt, but the trading arm of the company is still around and functioning, and Genesis Trading recently filed a lawsuit against Roger for saying that he hasn't settled about twenty million dollars worth of options

on the platform. When I talked to Roger about this, he said, you know, my contract with Genesis Trading basically stipulates that they have to be solvent for me to settle any transactions. And when I asked them for financial statements, they declined to provide them. So that's what he says. Uh, And I guess we'll see how it all plays out. But it's interesting that this lawsuit comes on the heels of another sort of payment issue that Roger has had

in the last year. Coin Flex, which is an exchange, alleged that Roger failed to pay a margin call, and this litigation with him is still ongoing. Now. Coming back to Genesis, Roger said on on social media that he has enough money to pay back. He just believes that Genesis Trading is in violation of their contract with him. I'm wondering how Roger actually responded to coin Flex's accusations. He says he actually doesn't owe them any money, So

I guess we'll see how it all plays out. At this point, it's sort of not clear what the actual situation is and who's telling the truth. Oh God, tell us what you think verse influence is in the crypto space going forward? And what is it about these big names that tend to dominate the crypt industry in the crypto space in general, and why we all follow them so closely. The big names, the early investors in this industry, they're they're still very influential because they have their fingers

and a lot of different pies. Like Roger for instance, he was an early investor in Ripple and bid pain and blockchain, dot com and cracking, so he runs his own crypto exchange. So he is very influential and listened being listened to by a lot of people because he is very involved in this industry still, as are a lot of the early adopters, early investors. And I think he also has the perspective on this industry that some

of the more recent investors perhaps don't have. He has seen a lot of this market up and and downs, and he sort of knows how genially, uh, the scrypto cycles play out, and at least I, you know, I find it very interesting and helpful to follow what he's doing. Alga, I love I'm missing with you about the old crypto days,

if we can call them that. So maybe five or six years ago, I remember, at least at Bloomberg it was mainly me and you covering cryptocurrencies and covering some of these big names in the space that remain big names in the space to this day. So thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today. Oh it was so much fun. Thank you so much for all Donna. That was Bloomberg reporter Olga Karif you can find more of a reporting on the Bloomberg terminal and

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