A life in chapters

It opens in a huge convention center in West Palm Beach, thousands of excited people jumping up and down, going crazy, listening to Tony Robbins speak. This is his first Date with Destiny event. He is experiencing it with his beautiful wife Stephanie beside him. They had just hit a milestone — ten years of marriage.

Tony is telling the story of his interview with South African President Nelson Mandela. He asks Mandela how he survived 27 years in jail. Mandela replies, "I didn't survive. I prepared."

"I didn't survive. I prepared."

And then, a tap on Joby's shoulder.

"You're under arrest for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to sell unregistered securities. You're looking at 25 years in jail, Mr. Weeks."

Joby's airplane sat on the tarmac, loaded with shoes and clothing for the orphans of the Bahamas, who had lost everything in the hurricane. He never made the flight.

Jobadiah Sinclair Weeks was born into a family of east coast Bostonian blue bloods. His ancestors were officers in the American Revolution.

His great-great-grandfather, John Wingate Weeks, was Secretary of War under Presidents Harding and Coolidge, and a United States Senator. His great-grandfather, Sinclair Weeks, was Secretary of Commerce under President Eisenhower, and also a United States Senator. Grandfather "Sinny" went to Harvard, ran Reed and Barton Silver, and sat on the board of Blue Cross Blue Shield.

His father Nat Weeks raced for the Dartmouth Ski Team, then headed west to Colorado and joined the Ski Patrol. Dad met Mom — "Silence" — in Steamboat on Easter Sunday. They married in 1980. Joby was born in Denver on August 25th, 1981.

He was groomed from a very young age to be an entrepreneur and a philanthropist. He had to be: his father quit the ski patrol and became a Christian school teacher, bringing home less than twenty thousand dollars a year.

In elementary school, he won awards selling candy for his sports teams and magazine subscriptions door to door. In middle school, he had a lawn mowing business in the summer and a snow removal business in the winter. By high school, he had visited all fifty states.

He started helping his mother sell cutting-edge wellness products that helped people recover from autoimmune disorders and cancers. By the time he graduated high school, he was a millionaire.

By twenty-one he owned a mansion in a gated community, on the beach, with a private wakeboarding lake. The family took Mannatech public on the NASDAQ, expanded globally — Tokyo, Sydney, London, Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, South Africa — selling into twenty-six markets. Over four billion dollars worth of product sold. Thirty million servings given to more than three hundred thousand children in over eighty countries.

By twenty-five he had visited over one hundred countries, climbed fifty of Colorado's fourteen-thousand-foot mountains, and five of the seven Summits. Everest and Cartzens Pyramid still to do.

He brought electronic cigarettes to the United States. He minted his own money. The Liberty Dollar, over one hundred million dollars in silver and gold coins circulated, accepted by nearly twenty thousand merchants nationwide. He minted the famous Ron Paul coins.

With the profits, he rented the world's longest stretch limousine and spent two months driving it across the country to thirty states and every Presidential debate. He rented a blimp and flew it over too.

Then the Liberty Dollar offices were raided by the FBI. Millions of dollars of lawful money in gold and silver — seized. It took them seven years to return it.

In defiance, he and his friend Rob started the American Open Currency Standard. They designed hundreds of custom coins, including the famous Cold Storage Coins, and the Bitcoin logo the world uses when discussing crypto. Probably the most recognized coin on earth.

He was elected as a National Delegate to the 2008 Republican National Convention, befriended his hero Dr. Ron Paul, crashed a Council on Foreign Relations meeting with Henry Kissinger, and served all 535 members of Congress a Petition for Redress of Grievances on C-SPAN.

Then Bitcoin was invented. Joby had to figure out Tor and the dark web. He got his first Bitcoin on the original Silk Road. Two hundred dollars bought him two hundred and fifty Bitcoins. Eighty-five cents each.

He watched it go from a dollar to tens of thousands. He started investing in every disruptive technology that challenged the status quo.

He was invited to Richard Branson's Necker Island for the Mai Tai Kiteboarding/Tech group. He pitched his solar project. A team from a Bitcoin mining company called Bitfury was there too.

A friend called and told him about a new Bitcoin mining company — BitClub. A founder spot was $3,500. Joby signed up, his wife, his family, his cousins, his friends. He would later learn that he joined BitClub sixteen months after it launched.

He flew to Iceland to tour the BitClub data center. He met Russ, the CEO. He negotiated mining hardware from Bitfury, the largest Bitcoin miner in the world. Seventy-five million dollars worth of equipment. He saved BitClub's members an estimated thirty million off the Bitmain price. He found them electricity in Iceland at three cents per kilowatt-hour, saving twenty million a year off their power bill.

He built, for BitClub, the largest Bitcoin mine in the world.

Over a million people joined BitClub from more than one hundred countries. The mine produced over 90,000 Bitcoins and 500,000 Ethereum.

Joby and Stephanie spent a year at sea circumnavigating the globe. Their goal was to go everywhere. They were mining Bitcoin on the ship in the middle of the ocean. They knocked out 170+ countries. He got stranded in the Bellot Strait trying to cross the Northwest Passage; the Coast Guard took nine days to rescue them.

He bought a submarine. He mapped the Blue Hole in Belize with Richard Branson. He did a deal with Uber to wrap the submarine as "ScUber" on the Great Barrier Reef.

He became Ambassador for an intergovernmental organization doing the UN Sustainable Development Goals. He had an audience with the Pope. He was title sponsor of the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore. Princess Jasmine of Monaco awarded him at UN General Assembly week in New York for Zero Waste Tech that turns old tires into oil and electricity.

He was made Prime Minister of the sovereign state of Pontinha. His first act: he made Bitcoin the official currency. The first country on Earth to do so.

He became a founding father of Liberland — the land of liberty — a micronation built on the blockchain. Over a million people signed up as citizens.

On October 22nd — the day his grandmother died — his daughter Liberty Weeks was born. Dr. Ron Paul, a physician who had delivered 4,000 babies, was the first person to hold her.

Liberty became the most traveled baby in the world. She hit all fifty states in forty-two days at forty-three days old, earning the world record. By her first birthday, she had racked up forty-five countries.

Silk Road was raided by the FBI. Ross Ulbricht was arrested and given a double life sentence for building a website. The government seized everyone's Bitcoin, Joby's included, and auctioned them off to Tim Draper.

So he got more Bitcoin. Then cyber criminals hacked Mt. Gox. He lost it all again.

So he got more. Then a hacker in the Philippines SIM-swapped him and stole twenty million in crypto. AT&T and T-Mobile were complicit. The New York Times and Forbes did stories. Joby went to the FBI. They did nothing. He hired private intelligence, delivered a full dossier. The FBI still did nothing.

All the major Bitcoin companies were pulling out of the United States. Crypto companies and banks were banning Americans. FATCA, FINCEN, the IRS — draconian laws had turned American citizens into second-class crypto citizens. BitClub was banning them too.

In April of 2018, Joby's friends in intelligence warned him: you are under investigation. He voluntarily flew to Washington, D.C., sat for six hours with IRS agents, without counsel, and answered every question. They sent him home.

Nineteen months later, they arrested him at Tony Robbins' Date with Destiny.

He was held in federal custody for eleven months. Locked up for up to 72 hours at a time — worse than solitary confinement, which at least allows one hour a day for a shower. He witnessed prison riots. He was subject to hunger strikes. He lived through the COVID-19 outbreak inside.

He was stripped naked repeatedly. His mail was intercepted. He was denied access to his lawyers. He was denied necessary medical care. He was denied visits from his family. He had ten different cellmates.

His two-year-old daughter Liberty learned to walk and talk while he was kidnapped and tortured against his will.

He never waived his right to a speedy trial. He contested every continuance. He spent over three million dollars on "the best lawyers in the world" who in the end were not successful at getting him a trial.

After eleven months, prosecutors told him: eat a tax charge — a charge he was not indicted for — and we will drop the fraud charge and release you. He signed the plea on November 5th, 2020.

Since November 2020, Joby Weeks has been under home incarceration. 24/7 GPS monitor. No computer. No smartphone with internet. Travel restricted to Colorado and New Jersey for court appearances. Six years. Still no trial.

He has read nearly 30,000 pages of law. He has written much of his book. He has compiled eight terabytes of BitClub footage for a feature film and a docu-series directed by Shawn Stone, son of Oliver Stone. Working title: The United States vs. Joby Weeks.

Mikki Willis — the filmmaker behind Plandemic — has called it "the craziest lawfare story ever told."

He has fired his lawyers. He has reversed his plea. He has filed his own motions. He invokes Pennoyer v. Neff: "A judgment rendered in violation of due process is void in the rendering state and is not entitled to full faith and credit elsewhere."

He harmed no one. He created no victims.

Meanwhile, the legal framework that built the case against him is being unwound. Ross Ulbricht has been pardoned. The SEC has dropped its crypto enforcement docket. The DOJ has disbanded its Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team. The Strategic Bitcoin Reserve is now federal policy. The GENIUS Act is federal law.

Every pioneer is being freed. Every case is being dropped. Except one.

What you can do  →