That doesn't make any sense at all. He wouldn't owe any taxes until he sold the bitcoin. He probably owed taxes on the original gift of 10K bitcoins though.
This doesn't help him take anything "off the grid" at all. If he still had access to the bitcoin, he couldn't do much with it unless he found someone who was willing to trade it and not report the transaction. Drug dealers maybe, but then what would he do with millions of dollars of cocaine?
This story is probably true, neither Jones nor Keiser have any reason to lie about it. But it's also Keiser's fault for not backing up the keys though.
... Ummhmm Sure. If I wanted to make my crypto go away and I was a famous person I would do this and make it public. The issue is he told everyone. Why the hell would you do that? Makes no sense. Naw, thats not lost. Write down the actual blocks of those coins and watch if they move in the future. I bet they do move in the future and they will do it tax free.
Alternatively they are a payoff. Want to not get wacked? Time to "lose" your btc to the dude with the machine gun. He is protected and you simply have to 'look stupid on TV'.
But Max Keiser is a hard core bitcoin evangelist. If anything, he would be lie and say he never gave Alex Jones those bitcoins.
I'm sure someone will try, but they might not even be able to trace the coins without his help. That size transaction was not unusual 10 years ago, so you have no idea which transaction was related to those coins. Especially if they came from a defunct exchange like MtGox.
There is most likely nothing funny going on here. Lots of people permanently lost access to their bitcoin keys early on. The estimates are in the millions of bitcoins.
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