Crypto Tycoon Roger Ver Quietly Relinquishes CEO Role at Bitcoin.com
Crypto entrepreneur and Bitcoin Cash backer Roger Ver quietly relinquished his role as CEO at controversial company Bitcoin.com. | Source: Malta AI & Blockchain Summit/YouTube.
Bitcoin Cash backer and noted cryptocurrency entrepreneur Roger Ver has quietly moved positions within his flagship company, Bitcoin.com .
Formerly the CEO of Bitcoin.com – sometimes confused with the CEO of Bitcoin itself by newcomers – Ver is now listed on the site as the executive chairman.
CEO to Executive Chairman, Quietly and Apparently Overnight
A brief trip to the WayBack Machine reveals that Roger Ver was listed as Bitcoin.com’s CEO as recently as July 24 – the last time the website was archived.
The screenshot above shows an earlier version of Bitcoin.com, in its current design, listing Roger Ver as CEO. The management shift does not appear to have been announced publicly.
The website now lists Ver as executive chairman, with Stefan Rust as CEO.
Rust’s LinkedIn indicates that he took over as CEO in July, after serving as the company’s global head of corporate & business development for six months.
Ver’s transition was first spotted by a Twitter user.
Did Roger Ver’s Messy History With Bitcoin Exchanges Play a Role in Exit as CEO?
Bitcoin.com is planning to launch a full-blown cryptocurrency exchange in September at exchange.bitcoin.com.
The company recently launched a Bitcoin Cash alternative to LocalBitcoins, and Roger Ver went so far as to taunt President Donald Trump when he attacked cryptocurrency in a tweetstorm.
It is unclear if these events are related. What we do know is that Roger Ver once “investigated” Mt. Gox and published the following infamous video in defense of Mark Karpeles even as the Japanese exchange was imploding.
He later recorded a retraction:
Roger Ver recently escaped from a libel lawsuit in the UK, brought against him by Craig “Satoshi Nakamoto” Wright. The lawsuit was brought at Ver’s invitation, but the magnanimous crypto personality’s team convinced a high court judge that Ver had done Wright’s reputation insufficient harm within England and Wales.
CCN.com has reached out to Bitcoin.com for comment. In doing so, we uncovered the following, interesting screen:
Bitcoin.com Is Not Bitcoin
We find this interesting because a number of notable Bitcoiners have often accused Roger Ver of trying to confuse people as to the nature of Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash. He is on the record as saying:
“If you are buying BTC in 2019 because you think it is Bitcoin, you are being fooled. You actually are looking for BCH, the peer to peer electronic cash system for online payments.”
He also previously supported Craig Wright’s claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto and was a principal player in the Bitcoin Cash hard fork two years ago today. Moreover, he was a chief proponent of the ill-fated “Bitcoin Cash is Bitcoin” campaign.
To our knowledge, Roger Ver has not publicly announced his change in roles at Bitcoin.com.
