# Panel | Free Roger Ver Panel | ETHDam III - 2025 - Channel: [CryptoCanal](https://streameth.org/cryptocanal) - Date: 2025-10-07 - Duration: 30:44 - Watch: https://streameth.org/watch/yt-DRES8A51-Hk - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRES8A51-Hk ## Description Welcome to the 3rd Edition of ETHDam, hosted May 9–11, 2025 in Amsterdam. This year, we brought together the brightest minds in privacy, security, and AI for a unique 48-hour hackathon + conference combo. 🌷 https://www.ethdam.com// 🌷 ------------------ Panel | Free Roger Ver Panel | ETHDam III - 2025 🎙 Panelists: Aaron Day - Brownstone Institute/Daylight Freedom - CEO/Fellow / https://x.com/AaronRDay http://daylightfreedom.org/ Mark Edge - Free Talk Live - Intergalactic Space King / https://x.com/MarkEdge_FTL https://blog.freetalklive.com/ Joël Valenzuela - Dash - Growth Lead / https://x.com/TheDesertLynx https://www.dash.org/ Sal Mayweather - Agoristics - Sal the Agorist / https://x.com/SallyMayweather http://saltheagorist.com/ Eleonore Blanc - Founder - CryptoCanal - ETHDam / https://x.com/blockblanc https://www.cryptocanal.org/ https://www.ethdam.com/ ------------------ About ETHDam & CryptoCanal ETHDam is powered by CryptoCanal, an education and events platform rooted in Amsterdam, expanding into Rotterdam and Zürich. Keep up with us to see updates on future events: https://www.cryptocanal.org/ Follow CryptoCanal on X: https://twitter.com/CryptoCanal Join CryptoCanal TG Community: https://t.me/CryptoCanalCommunity Join CryptoCanal Discord: https://discord.com/invite/XJVjpCqQBz CryptoCanal unites crypto enthusiasts committed to making a positive impact. Unapologetically political, we prioritize education, events, and services while championing cypherpunk values like privacy, sovereignty, and censorship resistance. ------------------ 🎥 Credits: Intro / outro by babyPRO - https://babypro.art/ ETHDam Photography by Paulus – https://concretestate.eu/ ------------------ Special thanks to our partners who made ETHDam possible: 🌹 Hackathon – Bouquet: Oasis Network https://oasisprotocol.org/ 🌷 Hackathon – Petal: Circles https://aboutcircles.com 💛 Conference – Gold: Zano https://zano.org/ Dash https://www.dash.org/ Bitvavo https://bitvavo.com/en 🩶 Conference – Silver: Igra Labs https://igralabs.com/hero 💛 Conference – Copper: Lido https://lido.fi/ DeTrip https://detrip.travel/ Cake Wallet https://cakewallet.com/ The Grid https://thegrid.id/ Calimero Network https://calimero.network/ 0xbow https://0xbow.io/ Mina https://minaprotocol.com/ JobStash https://jobstash.xyz/ Cyber Capital https://www.cyber.capital/ POAP https://poap.xyz/ Acronym Foundation (Supported our Top 10 Hackers) https://acronymfoundation.org/ 🌱 Sponsor: EF Ecosystem Support Program https://esp.ethereum.foundation ------------------ 0:00 Intro and welcome 1:00 Who is Roger Ver? 3:00 Roger’s early support for Bitcoin 5:00 Principles, voluntarism & peer-to-peer cash 7:00 Roger’s role in crypto history 10:00 Legal situation in Spain 12:00 Why he’s being targeted 15:00 Trump, lawfare & political context 20:00 The war on crypto is real 28:00 Final calls: use freedom tech, end the war ## Transcript Welcome to East to East to East to East. I'd like to welcome to the stage Soul, Joel, and Mark. Please, please come and join us for a conversation about Roger V. Here you go. You go. Thank you. Thank you, Mark. Thank you. We have mics here. I have to squeeze mark in the middle. A that's for that's for Twitter. Um I will squeeze in. Squeeze in. Is it too big? Squeeze in. Squeeze in. Sit in your lap. All right. Just sit on salt. Who wants to introduce Bitcoin Jesus? That's a task. We have to start by there. Who is the man? Who is the man we're going to be talking about today? What? Mark, what do you think? I'll take a shot. Yep. Um, I couldn't tell you the year precisely. Let's call it 2008. Roger Ver contacts me um to advertise on Free Talk Live. Free Talk Live is a radio program on about a hundred radio stations in the United States at the time. He wants to advertise his business, memory dealers.com. They have optical transceivers. I don't know what an optical transceiver is still. Um, nonetheless, uh, his main goal is that we continue to do what we do. He really doesn't care whether we sell optical transceivers. Turns out one of our listeners was in acquisitions at um Oracle and we only did one sale, but it was a multi-million dollar sale for him. Anyhow, um so Roger uh you know, he he was he's been passionate about uh Liberty. Then he tells us about the time that he got locked in prison for selling rat traps because he was campaigning against the dad of an FBI agent in California, I think for a state rep run. And he said that government's violence. All of these people here are violent thugs. And the FBI agent didn't like that. So, they hunted him down and found out what they could find out about him. Um, he's selling rat traps that lots of people sell on the internet. They include a little firecracker in them. And, you know, off he goes into prison for about a year. He decides, I don't like America anymore. He moved to Japan in order to uh feel safe. Many people do this. And so, he advertised on our show in order to promote liberty. He's very passionate about that. Then one day um after we had spoken to Gavin Andre, the head developer of Bitcoin at the time about Bitcoin, we talked about it on the air, Roger heard that episode and went into a three-day long deep dive manic um dig into what is Bitcoin. He said he didn't sleep for two days and he you know he he he fell in love with Bitcoin. That was shortly after that video that part of that video that you watched there. And Roger is a man who uh fundamentally cares about people. Um he cares about their safety. He cares about their liberty. He cares about the things that the founders of America cared about. Thank you. I would just say yeah, he um on top of all that, he's a very well-versed voluntarist. So like all of his views are based on the principles of volunteerism and freedom that you know we were all talking about here. Um he's also just a genuinely good human being. He's just like a a salt of the earth, downto-earth human being. Um he's very charitable. He's donated to people in like times of need like uh people who've needed like surgeries and all sorts of uh bad situations that they've they've fallen in. Um, I think you made a video about like a sort of a conglomeration of clips from everybody and there was just like so many things in there that he's done for people that he doesn't advertise it. He doesn't go around waving a flag saying look at what I've done. Although frankly maybe at this point he should because uh you know a little little good press at this point can't be a bad thing. But um he was the one who sort of um you know uh white pilled me into uh big blocks. I was sort of agnostic about the whole thing and then um I was speaking to him one day and he kind of laid it all out for me. I thought, you know, let me sit on that and uh I I had him on my show and there was a huge push back from the Bitcoin maximalists and I realized we were pissing off all the right people. So I dug even deeper and next thing you know I was I became a Bitcoin Casher and thank god I did because otherwise I was at risk of you know laser eyes. Yeah. Laser eyes. Yeah. So, I've known Roger probably less than less directly than everyone here, although still, you know, I would consider him a personal friend. Um, I've been in sort of involved in the crypto space since like 2013, so not super long, but a while still humble. Um well compared to everyone you know but Roger I think that people really don't understand the heritage that we have today like our roots because I mean obviously so we're talking about you know not afraid to be political and stuff like that um which you know people increasingly more afraid to be political with these kinds of things. Um the entire from like the Bitcoin Genesis block had a political statement in it about why does this matter that we're we the people are being screwed over by the big banks and governments etc. this is a revolutionary tool to fight back. And that was I mean as far as I I know Satoshi was other than that was not super explicit with like you know the very finer points of political manifestos but uh Roger was sort of the guiding spirit of all of crypto in the early days as far as they called him Bitcoin Jesus for a reason and it's not and which which by side note people are starting to call Michael Sailor that and I'm I want to vomit but that's a different story. Um, I just had to get that off my chest. So, because it wasn't just because, oh, this guy's a great wonderful activist or something. He was the first angel investor in cryptocurrency companies and startups. And before it was just random internet nerd money that people just, you know, maybe traded some for a pizza one time and then thought that was cool and that's it. This made it real into the real economy and bootstrapped it. So not only did he create did he show there was an economic viability to this entire space but he also was a constant reminder of why this matters. This is a way to replace the systems that hold us down. This is a way to achieve freedom everywhere in the world. No matter who or where no matter what monetary system the government of that area decides no matter who wants to financially censor you etc. And um a lot of unfortunately he became sort of viewed as a political figure in the block size wars later where a lot of like the you know I guess by market capitalization the winners of the war kind of sort of demonized him to a certain extent but we owe the all this matters the the mattering of this entire technology. We I would say we kind of owe to him and people who were inspired by stuff that he did and continued down that path. just say he's off. He's um he's been just like the northstar of of of the movement for for quite a while and like the guiding light of of crypto anarchy and the cipher punk movement and he's been the most consistently principled person I think I've ever met in my entire life. I I mean, you know, a lot of people confuse him as being the Bitcoin cash guy. He's always been about peer-to-peer digital cash that can be used by anyone and he's always invested in a variety of things. A lot of people don't realize he was the first investor in XRP and he invested in a variety of privacy projects. He he's concerned about he believes in the market and then he is concerned about the outcome which is finding solutions in a dynamic marketplace that will help facilitate freedom. But he's also and part of what happened with the block size war. He wasn't even originally on the side. But a lot of people think he started Bitcoin Cash. He did not. Believe it was Gavin Andre actually. No, it was guy with a French name Amari Sasha. That's right. Okay. I'm thinking of That's right. I'm thinking of the other any the other four. But in any event, he um he didn't start it. He was persuaded when he saw the censorship and propaganda that was being used by these small blockers. That's actually what pushed him over the edge. And he's been very consistent and as an advocate for free speech. So, he's supported a lot of other groups. He was the founding donor and board member at the Brownstone Institute. He's funded anti-war.com. He funded fee. He funded uh was the largest funer of Ross Olrich's legal fees. I think he funded part of Wikileaks. And I didn't know a lot of this about him. I've learned most of this about him over the course of the last year. Usually as you get to know someone, it's like, oh, you know, we're going to find out the bad news. And in this case, like it's it's amazing. This guy has never deviated from principle and and uh just a wonderful human being. To the audience listening to us today, we are on a panel called Free Roger Ver. What's happening? Where is he? Um, Roger's currently in Spain. He's confined to one province. Um, and he is not allowed to leave. He It's a big prison. Um, and you know, certainly worse places to live, but he his, you know, his wife and family or excuse me, his ex-wife and family can't uh stay because of, you know, immigration issues. So, they come regularly to see him. Um and he's, you know, just trying not to get drugged back into the United States and thrown in jail on spurious IRS charges. Um you know, they don't there's they could work this out with lawyers. Um as they had I think the most uh interesting part of his case to me is nobody who has a tax attorney ever gets in trouble because the tax attorney stands between you and the government. Roger Ver had two of the largest tax firms in America look over his returns before he filed them. These are the returns that they're concerned with now. So if they're filed improperly, let's talk to the tax attorneys. You don't need to confine this guy in Spain. And by the way, Spain's violating its own laws in order to hold Roger. But, you know, if you have the biggest uh biggest gangster on the block telling you to do something, I can understand why they're doing it. It doesn't make it right. It just makes it understandable. Why did this happen to him? Do you have an idea? I I think it happened because of Executive Order 14067 and because the Biden administration put a high priority in targeting people that could be effective at spreading peer-to-peer digital cash as an alternative to the CBDC's they were trying to roll out. I actually don't think it was related to hijacking of Bitcoin because the indictment actually came from the grand jury before the book was published. Interesting. I I just thought that the timing around the release of his book, Hijacking Bitcoin, is such a it's just so close, you know? Very coincidental. Yeah. Very very coincidental. Who wants to give a shot and resume hijacking Bitcoin quickly for this audience? What do you mean? Just summarize it. Yeah. Well, essentially the argument is that the again as I as I said earlier um you know this the state and and federal saboturs uh infiltrated the cryptocurrency community and they agitated to keep blocks small because they knew that small blocks would uh render the the chain inefficient as a competitor to uh the banking cartels monopoly. All of this, all of the the persecutions, we not just Roger, but Ian and Alexi and everybody else. It's all part of the war on crypto designed to protect their financial monopoly. And it's the only thing that they care about um is money. You know, I was when I was in school for political science, I had a professor say, "If you ever want to like learn the truth about what's really going on, just follow the money." And in all of these cases, it all goes back to the same original starting point, which is the the banking cartel. Everything that we've been dealing with in the cryptocurrency community for the last 5 years, all of the persecutions, the weaponization of SEC, it's all about protecting the banking card. In my my opinion, the the difficult thing with any of these cases as to why did Roger Vir um get arrested is you look like a crazy person trying to, you know, connect the dots. Well, look at this. Here's this fact and that fact. And I mean, you know, that's what they want us to look like is crazy people trying to connect the dots. They'll never tell us. You know, this is the big lie of democracy. They tell you, at least in the United States, I know I've got a European audience here, they tell you in the United States, you are the government. Now, if you're the government, don't you have to have all the information? How can I make an educated vote on which one of these liars and thieves gets to control the the nuclear button to blow us all to kingdom come? How am I going to make an educated decision if I don't get the information? But you know, you know perfectly well they don't give you the information. They'll tell you they they don't give you the information. We can't tell you. Well, then you're not the government. You're part of a big play that legitimizes the government and that's all. So, I don't know the reason that Roger Ver was targeted by them, but I suspect it's because he called them murderers. He called the people who killed people's children murderers. And they really hate that. When you drop a million dollar bomb on a $10 tent and you kill three some terrorist three kids, you're a murderer just like he is. Yeah. And I'll sort of add to I'd like to start my fund for bail now. Yep. Get ahead of the curve. Um, it's also Roger's always, you know, been Mr. Moral Northstar without hesitation. And one thing that I that does threaten people who have infranch you know he was a very successful businessman before he learned about Bitcoin went all in and all into crypto and then left the country left renounced his US citizenship and you know play paid his exit tax again that's the whole the the whole case is about well he didn't pay enough or whatever etc. The point is he's a sort of a living example of a very successful person who is part of who uses decentralized digital currency and builds businesses and everything like that and is just outside of the system and an open critic of it. And this is the the dynamics have kind of come back even right now where you know Ross Albrech uh being pardoned was a big part a big campaign promise of the Trump administration and when there's campaigning now let's free Roger now too um Elon Musk famously said when he was looking into it on this behalf he just he said like no pardon for Roger u he uh citizenship has its benefits and it's kind of like, you know, it's a really sad thing to think about and I'm I'm not trying to, you know, defend Musk at all, but it's he's probably just kind of communicating what he had kind of heard. Um, but the point is it's like you're you're you're not going to be part of team America at this point. He's he's team freedom. And if you're in team freedom, people who are in team anything else, even if it's team something that has overlap with some freedom, it tends to be kind of a threat to things. And so just his very act of being a strong independent person with citizenship outside of the largest world power who is doesn't need to be for example in America to be a shining light of success. That's kind of a big threat, especially if you're outside of the US talking smack about the government saying, "No, they're bombing children. That's terrible. They're doing this. That's terrible." And they can't. It's a strong It's an example of to be followed. And they don't want other people following him. They don't want other people being wildly successful outside of the fiat currency scam, outside of the control of any one government, critical of this thing. they don't want to set so that they're trying to make some whoever initiated this entire thing. I don't it doesn't sound that it's not that much of a stretch to think that maybe they try to make an example out of this one person so other people kind of explore much milder forms of freedom. Interesting. I see that we've touched on on two things here. We talked about hijacking Bitcoin making him an outsider to crypto, right? an outsider to to Bitcoin or at least a critic amongst our little community, our little world. He spoke out. He had the the gumption and the courage uh not to create Bitcoin Cash, but to stand for big blocks, to stand for peer-to-peer electronic cash, to stand for freedom in an electronic form. And he also stood up against the United States by renouncing his citizenship. Where does that leave him today in this fight? And how can we, you know, reconcile these things or maybe or maybe not reconcile these things, but by being an outsider, it's a really good point you brought up, uh, Joel, by being an outsider in both cases, I don't seem don't see him being the next Ross Albbright who's an American and who is championed uh, by the Bitcoin community. Well, I I just want to say like like um, you know, this is obviously this is a clear case of lawfare. I think we're all in agreement and uh no one should understand lawfare more than Donald Trump who's who was who's been the victim for the last 5 years of of political persecution from the opposing party. And I'm not here to defend Donald Trump. But my point is that if anyone should understand what that's like. It's the guy who's supposed to give him a pardon. If Donald Trump didn't get elected president, he would have no choice but to leave the country just like Roger did. If Roger wanted to uh run for president and he won, then he wouldn't have had to renounce his citizenship. So, I think Trump kind of forgets that at times. Well, if you look at the lawfare against Roger, initially with his first jail sentence, I think that was under the Clinton administration and then and then he was targeted again and this last indictment was under the Biden administration. So, I think from Trump's perspective, you could make an argument that well, of course, he'd leave. He he holds fundamental American values and then he gets targeted and thrown in prison every time these Democrats are in office. And so that should actually resonate with Trump, I would think. The other thing though is Trump has said he wants America to be the destination for crypto and he wants this golden visa thing for everybody to want to come here. You cannot be the capital of crypto for the world while you are crucifying Bitcoin Jesus. Donald Trump said he ended the war on crypto and I celebrate that. But you can't end the war and not bring home the prisoners of war. There are people right now sitting in prison for trumped up charges in the war on crypto and they need to be released. Roger Ver chief among them. Ian Freeman right behind him. Well, the tornado cash guys, you know, it's like I said earlier, he'll he'll let the hawka girl rugpull her followers, but he won't do the hard work of, you know, freeing Ian and and Roger and ending Alexis's case and Gallino. So, it's like superficially, yes, it seems like, oh yes, I've ended the war on crypto. He'll give a speech at the Bitcoin conference and all the maxis will cheer like sheep, you know, like like seals or something like that. But when it comes down to doing the actual hard work, he's nowhere to be found. One thing that I think it's Ross Lberg had the the very good um for well good fortune in a in a very dark and twisted way of sort of being out of the crypto world during the block size wars because he surely would have been crucified like Roger during that time. And I remember when Roger first started making public appeals about his case uh on you know a bunch of popular shows like the Tucker Carlson show things like that. um true to himself. He's authentic and honest. Unfortunately, to the detriment of his cause sometimes because a lot of Bitcoin maximalists got really upset at that. And there basically the message was we support you being free, but you had to use your appeal for freedom to get one more dig at the maximalist and just say, you know, say the truth really about that Bitcoin was co-opted and is not a tool for freedom anymore. And then every single time he's been appealing for his freedom, you've seen the most prominent voices or a lot of the more prominent voices in the so-called crypto freedom revolution coming at him and just saying he needs a rot in jail. And there's been it's been very eye opening how many people who make a big big swagger online and get their clout and their followers being like Bitcoin is bigger than the banks and the Bitcoin for freedom. There's an account saying Bitcoin for freedom. was talking smack, which is just like insane. And so that's kind of been the the the story of Roger in this whole thing is he has gotten in trouble for being everything that we ever wanted a crypto hero to be. We wanted someone principled. We want someone who puts their their name on the line, their money on the line, who we want someone who who puts all their wealth into crypto. We want someone who puts all their economic activity that they can in actual uncensorable peer-to-peer cash. He's done it all. And unfortunately, that's like a a threat to some people. And so, um, one thing I I've kind of I realized, I don't remember which year, but many years ago, I realized that crypto was unstoppable at some point. Maybe there could be elements that could be co-opted or watered down, but this is the wave is too big to stop. The problem is humans are stoppable, right? M Srich lost 10 11 years of his life because of this Ian Freeman and you know the list goes on and like for example you know I have a podcast that I do on the side and I like four or five of my guests are in or have been in prison and it's like a little bit of a dude don't come on my show anyone here by the way some of you are it's already too late but the point is uh we crypto is going to be okay in some way shape or form very likely But we have to take care of our martyrs who came along the way and just it could have been a lot of us that could have just taken the hit instead and instead like the the greatest people who have pushed this forward who have made a lot of people a lot of money a lot of money and then you have these people sacrificed their freedom in a lot of ways in order for a lot of people to be rich and even people who aren't rich to have companies and careers and in industry. the fact that there's an industry. We owe that to mostly Roger specifically, but you know, other people as well. And because of his uncompromis because he did things that didn't make business sense at the time necessarily because he did idealistic financial investments, for example, and a lot of activism with money and because of that risk he took of losing his hard-earned money to stuff that doesn't work out. We all have we are here. Yeah. There are people with money and companies that are able to fund this conference. This is all because of first Roger and then you know the people who came after him. I think we owe it to him to take care of him at this point to do what we can. [Applause] We do. And I would just like to point out one of my favorite pins that I have which is from bitcoin.com and it says free the market, free the world. And I always saw uh Roger Ver as that guiding light, as that principled person. And I am through your podcast, through you getting him into crypto, through him talking to you and you and you. I am from that school. I am from that school. I am that person in 2017 who understood the block size debate without going through it. I am a big blocker at heart. I am a peer-to-peer electronic cash advocate to this day and it is my honor um to somehow be a facilitator of conference and events to just bring about people in conversation like this one and I hate that this is already the the second martyr that I have to to stand by. I this is not what I'm going after. But somehow um the authorities keep jailing and putting people that I deeply care about in jail or in difficult situations. And I would like to dedicate my work and Etham and this panel to the martyrs of crypto and to Roger Ver and for everything that he's done for crypto. So thank you so much. Thank you so much. Yep. Final remarks. Yeah. I'd like to Whoops. Yeah. Is the mic cut here? I' I'd like to extend my hand to f a friendship and partnership to small blockers and everybody of every form of crypto out there. Uh all you s coiners, fine, you know, whatever it takes. Um like this is a Roger's a great man because he stood on principle. Does he have an opinion that's wrong? Of course he does. I mean for God's sakes he was married. Of course he's wrong. But um you know he is uh he had his opinions and he has his opinions and his opinions are what his opinions are. A man shouldn't go to prison for his opinion. He should go to prison because he's a danger to society. He's a violent individual. There's no reason to lock a man up because he disagrees with you on which you know what what order the ones and zeros are in. That's crazy talk. Thank you. Well, I guess yeah, I guess I would just say that um you know, I just would echo what you say. You see all the OGs in crypto rallying around his his defense and that's really all that we can do. Um I just in in closing, I would just encourage everybody to go to free rogernow.org and sign the petition to put pressure on these political parasites to free a good man. Um I'm confident that he will be victorious. I think that um sort of the trend that we're starting to see is they're kind of dropping these cases as they go on hopefully at least. So again, sign the petition and hopefully we encourage your friends and family, your cousins and your distant relatives to go sign it because we need to get as many people as possible to put the maximum amount of pressure on these people to end this persecution. Something worked with Ross Albertch. I don't know if it was the petition, but I mean it's all we can do. You know, there's um you know, if any of you know Donald Trump, could you talk to him for us, tweet at him, but maybe this is a little bit more of a somber take, but it's clear that I mean, this is tech. Us nerds love the tech. It's an industry. It's a business though. The future of money, the future of other it's all kind of stuff. But at its core, this is also a revolutionary war. We're at war with the powers that would control us. And as ugly as it is to say, wars have casualties and we can try to save as many as we can to reduce those casualties, we we will do our best here, but the point is to win the war. We don't want people to suffer in vain. And I know that people like Roger put themselves at great personal risk to spread freedom for the good of all mankind. And he could have been a lot safer if that's what his number one priority was in life. But it wasn't. It was freeing the world. So, let's stop using fiat, right? Let's start using decentralized tech. Let's start doing let's start doing using the gift that people who suffer gave to us. And yes, let's try to get them out too. But whether or not all the martyrs are safe and free and stuff is not 100% up to us. What is 100% up to us is what we do with what they fought for. So, stop using fiat, start using freedom tech, and start pushing more people to use freedom tech. Let's win the war. Thank you. One of the Yeah. One of the reasons I've been so excited and enthusiastic about using Zeno and promoting Zeno is I'm a big believer that in they want what they're doing to Roger to have a chilling effect. We need to have it have a galvanizing effect so that they stop this behavior and recognize that when they do this, it's going to have the opposite effect. Amen. Gentlemen, I want to thank the AV guys up there, the sound guys, and everybody making us look good. A big round of applause for them. Nobody ever talks about him. Thank you guys. Of course, it's the professional radio guy to say that, right? Yes, indeed. I know what it takes. I can run that board later if you need me to. Yes, we will. Thank you so much, guys. Thank you for for this panel.