'Bitcoin Jesus' smites extortionist hacker by turning Bitcoin into bounty

Roger Ver, a/k/a 'Bitcoin Jesus' discovered Bitcoin in 2011 and deemed it the most important invention in the history of the world since the internet. Ver serves as CEO of MemoryDealers.com, which has become the first mainstream business to accept Bitcoins as payment. He has since become the most prolific Bitcoin related startup investor.

All that being said, when a industrious hacker was able to access the Hotmail account of Ver and steal some personal information then hold it for ransom - WWBJD? Well, 'Bitcoin Jesus' would turn it around and offer the same amount of Bitcoin (37 BTC, which equates to about $20,000 USD) that the hacker was attempting to extort from him as a bounty for the capture of said hacker. Brilliant move!

According to Wired, after Nitrous had established that he’d hacked Ver, the Bitcoin enthusiast tried to stall him–buying for time as he and Maurice tried to regain control of the hacked accounts. After about an hour of taunting and negotiations, Nitrous’s patience was wearing thin. He threatened to “own” Ver 10,0000 times harder. “You Fag,” he wrote. “Listen, my mom needs a liver transplant that starts at $15,000, man…I am so sorry for having to do this, but it’s just what I have to do.” Then Ver responded with a link to a Facebook post offering that 37-Bitcoin bounty for information leading to Nitrous’s arrest, and Nitrous immediately backed down.

“Sir, I am sincerely sorry. I am just a middleman. I was being told what to tell you,” the hacker told Ver soon after the bounty was posted, before later asking: “Are you going to order a hitman to kill me now?”



To be clear, Ver didn’t put a bounty on Nitrous’s head. He merely said he’ll pay out the money when Nitrous is arrested for hacking his accounts. But clearly, bitcoin’s sometimes unsavory connections with the Silk Road online drug marketplace and the bankrupt Mt. Gox Bitcoin exchange cause even criminals to think twice. Ver wouldn’t say whether he has contacted authorities, but in the wild west of bitcoin, a reward like this seems like a thoroughly appropriate response. “I don’t have much faith…in the government police,” Ver tells us. “But I hope that they actually do catch him.”