...and is definitely not an enormous grift that's pouring lighter fluid on our already smoldering planet.
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Ver was arrested in Spain, and the United States will seek his extradition.
Besides his tax woes, Ver has also been caught up in accusations by CoinFLEX that he owed the platform around $84 million after failing to meet a margin call. Ver has in turn claimed that CoinFLEX owed him money. CoinFLEX filed for restructuring in August 2022.
As tends to happen with insolvent exchanges, they are hoping to "compensate" their depositors with a mix of CoinFLEX-issued tokens and equity, rather than actual money or more liquid, established cryptocurrencies.
Although they initially dodged naming the counterparty, CEO Mark Lamb eventually publicly stated that this counterparty was Roger "Bitcoin Jesus" Ver, who he said failed to meet a $47 million margin call. However, Ver publicly refuted this claim, stating that CoinFLEX in fact owed him money. Both parties went back and forth, each accusing the other of misrepresenting the situation.
On July 9, the company stated that they would be seeking arbitration to recover $84 million from Ver — an updated figure that they said factored in the "significant loss in liquidating his significant FLEX coin positions".
The company then posted an announcement that they would be "pausing all withdrawals" due to "extreme market conditions last week & continued uncertainty involving a counterparty". They were cagey about the identity of the counterparty, though the announcement explicitly stated it was not the underwater hedge fund Three Arrows Capital, which has been causing a domino effect throughout the crypto industry. They later alleged the counterparty was Roger Ver, though he denied the claim.
CoinFLEX began allowing customers to withdraw up to 10% of their funds on July 14, but the remaining 90% continued to be inaccessible to them.
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