Roger Ver: CoinFlex Owes Me Money

A traditionally niche online community, the Bitcoin Cash Hangout, received a significant increase in audience numbers today, as the July 3rd episode promised to feature a statement by Roger Ver on the CoinFlex situation.

For the uninitiated, CoinFlex has become the latest cryptocurrency exchange to signal insolvency, after pausing withdrawals on the platform. At first the stated reasoning was a “transaction backlog”, and the exchange did happily accept deposits during the time.

However, most suspicions were soon proven correct, as Mark Lamb, CEO of the exchange, effectively outed Ver as the reason for an existing hole in the exchange’s balance sheet. According to Lamb, Ver had privileged access to margin trading, allowing him to use margin trading without depositing collateral first. 

So 90 minutes into the Bitcoin Cash Hangout podcast, which was listened live by 400 people, including attorney Daniel Kelman and none other than CoinFlex CEO Mark Lamb himself Ver presented a much expected, yet rather disappointing statement. He once again reaffirmed that he owes no money to CoinFlex, that CoinFlex owes him money instead, and that because of confidentiality agreements and advice from his legal team he regretfully cannot share more details, despite his burning desire to do so.

On a side note, he did express concern about the current state of the centralised SmartBCH bridge which has been managed by the Seychelles company. In a case of bankruptcy, the BCH backing the wrapped SmartBCH bitcoin cash on the bridge might potentially have to be sold, which could break the backing of the wrapped token and effectively destroy the entire sidechain. 

Former brand ambassador for CoinFlex, Doug Polk, was also present on the call, and he did use the opportunity to ask Roger Ver a number of questions.

While Ver was legally unable to provide more details about previous margin trading positions on CoinFlex, or his opinion on the rvUSD token, he did state that he owes equity in the Seychelles company that runs the exchange.

CoinFlex CEO Mark Lamb was also online during the call but chose not to speak publicly. As the consensus during the conversation that more transparency is in everyone’s best interest, we hope that Lamb will at least release some attorney-approved official statement instead.