Thoughts on the Roger Ver/Tucker Carlson interview

First, let me be clear, I've had a somewhat combative history with Roger [1], but the man does not deserve to be in prison. The US Government's contention that a non-citizen can be guilty of tax evasion is just laughable on its face.

That said, there are a whole lot of lies and half-truths in that interview. First, Roger still seems to be giving himself credit for Bitcoin's early success. Yes, he promoted it a lot on different platforms, and indeed he was known as "Bitcoin Jesus" for a bit for his almost incessant proselytizing. But he wasn't the reason for Bitcoin's success and it was this belief that led him to say "I made Bitcoin what it is today and I'll do the same with Bitcoin Cash." Years of languishing BCH price (literally the same price as it was 2017 and that's not taking inflation into account) hasn't humbled the guy one bit.

He also shilled a lot of different altcoins, mostly focused around privacy. One of his goals on the show seems to have been to pump his bags and for him, it's probably not very different than his early Bitcoin advocacy. He's still a classic altcoin promoter and despite his utter lack of success the last 7 years, he continues down this path.

But the most egregious lie is this idea that his new book is the reason why everything is happening to him, implying that he has something so important to say that the US government must shut him down. The suggestion is that somehow Bitcoin was taken over by the US government and that they needed to suppress his book for the sake of government policy.

The lie wouldn't be so egregious if he sincerely believed it. But I don't think that's the case. Why? Because he still owns Bitcoin. The man is a salesman first, and his public pronouncements are almost always spin to get other people to buy what he's selling.

Personally, I don't think his arguments were compelling and he kept saying "cryptocurrency" which grated on my ears, but who knows how many people will be convinced by him? But then again, I always thought CSW was a fraud, but there were a surprising number of people that fell for his claims (including Ver, at least for a time).

Regardless, I don't think this presages some sort of Roger Ver comeback as he's been irrelevant for a long time. Yes, he may go to prison and become something like a celebrity cause, and he certainly has enough money to promote his suffering. And yea, he may get some fame from being something like political prisoner of the deep state. But it won't make his opinions any more palatable because they're demonstrably dumb.