Domino Valdano On April 24, Ver published "Hijacking Bitcoin" his...
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Domino Valdano On April 24, Ver published "Hijacking Bitcoin" his memoir of the blocksize wars. In his book, Ver argues that Bitcoin was hijacked by a cabal of developers who deliberately crippled it so that they could profit by selling layer 2 services. That cabal--which controlled the central bitcoin forums at the time--heavily censored their opposition, which continues to this day. Since then, powerful players in the mainstream financial industry have started investing in Bitcoin, and offering Bitcoin related services. For example, BlackRock --world's largest asset manager, with US$10 trillion in assets under management--bought a billion dollars worth of Bitcoin which they began offering as an ETF on January 10, 2024, Ver went on a press tour for the book, appearing on many popular podcasts. During the press tour, he laid out the evidence for his claims that Bitcoin had become an expensive, slow, centrally controlled spycoin. If you were the head of the most powerful financial services company in the world, would you be very happy that "Bitcoin Jesus" was shit talking your billion dollar investment? Shit talk which might drive down the value of your investment? What if you could make the gadfly go away by a few calls to your buddies in the IRS? Ver gave up his citizenship in 2014. So, the government has had a decade to determine whether he fully paid his taxes. I don't think it's a coincidence that the IRS decided to press the case right in the middle of the press tour for Ver's book.