Roger Ver, the early Bitcoin evangelist once known as “Bitcoin Jesus,” has reached a deal with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to settle a long-running tax fraud case.
According to The New York Times, Ver will pay around $48 million to settle the charges, and if he meets the terms of the deal, the case will be dropped entirely.
Ver became a well-known figure in the Bitcoin space in the early 2010s for passionately promoting Bitcoin when it was still unknown. He earned the nickname “Bitcoin Jesus” for giving away bitcoin for free and investing in many of the first companies in the industry.
Later, he became a key supporter of Bitcoin Cash, a fork of the Bitcoin blockchain he has described as the “real Bitcoin.”
The DOJ accused Ver of fraud, tax evasion, and filing false tax returns related to his massive bitcoin holdings.
Prosecutors said that before Ver renounced his U.S. citizenship in 2014, he gave false or misleading information to a law firm and an appraiser to hide the true number of BTC he owned personally and through his companies MemoryDealers and Agilestar.
Related: Roger Ver Arrested and Charged with Tax Evasion | Case Breakdown
According to court filings, Ver and his companies held as many as 131,000 bitcoin in 2014.
When bitcoin prices skyrocketed in 2017 Ver sold tens of thousands of them — worth around $240 million at the time — without reporting the gains to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
Prosecutors said his actions “deprived the IRS” of taxes in the amount of approximately $48 million.
Ver was arrested in Spain in 2024 after the U.S. requested his extradition. The DOJ’s Los Angeles office filed the indictment accusing him of concealing the value of his holdings to avoid paying taxes before he gave up his citizenship.
When contacted by The New York Times and other outlets, Ver reportedly declined to comment, saying, “I’d love to say more, but I will follow my tax lawyer’s advice like I’ve been doing for decades. Unfortunately, that means ‘no comment’.”
The deal is a deferred-prosecution agreement — if Ver meets his obligations, including paying the full amount, the charges will be dropped. The settlement has not been filed in court and is subject to change, pending a judge’s approval. The DOJ has not commented on the reported deal.
As of now, a court hearing is set for December 15, 2025.
The settlement comes during President Donald Trump’s second term, a time when Washington’s attitude towards the Bitcoin industry has flipped 180 degrees. Under Trump, the administration has relaxed enforcement and rolled back many of the crackdowns of the past.
Several high-profile figures — including Ross Ulbricht, founder of the Silk Road marketplace, and Arthur Hayes of BitMEX — have already gotten presidential pardons.
Ver’s legal team has ties to Trump’s inner circle. According to the New York Times, he paid $600,000 to political strategist Roger Stone, a longtime Trump ally, to lobby against the tax provisions involved in his case.
He also hired attorneys David Schoen and Christopher Kise, both of whom have represented Trump in various legal matters, along with the lobbying firm led by Brian Ballard, a major Republican fundraiser.
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