The newest dump of Epstein recordsdata from the U.S. Department of Justice has quite a lot of fascinating emails and different paperwork associated to Jeffrey Epstein’s early curiosity and involvement in Bitcoin and the crypto trade. Previous stories established a connection between Epstein and the funding of Bitcoin Core growth by means of Joi Ito at MIT, however new paperwork point out Epstein could have had some involvement and even invested (straight or not directly) within the early phases of some totally different key crypto startups from crypto trade big Coinbase to Bitcoin expertise firm Blockstream. They additionally reveal Epstein had misgivings about taking advantage of crypto token pumps.
Some of the oldest emails within the Epstein recordsdata associated to Bitcoin contain All-In Podcast co-host and angel investor Jason Calacanis, who Epstein reached out to in an effort to get in contact with anybody engaged on the two-year outdated decentralized monetary community in 2011. Calacanis pointed to 2 Bitcoin Core contributors, Gavin Andresen and Amir Taaki, who had lately appeared on Calacanis’s present This Week in Startups
.@Jason mentioned 10+ instances that he solely knew Epstein within the 90s. He was truly serving to Epstein by means of the 2000s and 2010s, even after the kid intercourse trafficking conviction.
Man begins VR firm, donates to Trump: “Total moron, no moral compass!”
Man rapes youngsters: “hey pal!” pic.twitter.com/RTgG56dw0l
— Palmer Luckey (@PalmerLuckey) January 31, 2026
Anduril founder and CEO Palmer Luckey pointed to this interplay with glee, as Luckey has a longstanding beef with Calacanis. The All-In co-host additionally revealed his personal assertion on X in an try to distance himself from Epstein.
In the e-mail, Calacanis warned Epstein that Andresen and Taaki weren’t enterprise varieties, stating, “so you know, these are folks who are not trying to build a business. they are the crazy open source folks who are radicals. their motivation is more inline with Wikileaks or wikipedia.”
According to an X submit from Taaki, “He wanted to invest in my company. I was for it but my CEO looked him up and said absolutely not. Dodged a bullet lol wish i can read this email.”
There are additionally plenty of emails involving Epstein and Blockstream co-founder and former CEO Austin Hill. At one level, Hill emailed Ito, Epstein, and LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman seemingly upset about investments made by some Blockstream traders in a few of its perceived opponents, particularly Ripple and Stellar.
“Ripple, and Jed’s new stellar are bad for the ecosystem we are building and it does our company damage to have investors who are backing two horses in the same race,” Hill wrote.
Epstein additionally obtained common forwarded emails of Coinbase investor updates from Blockchain Capital co-founder Brock Pierce, who was additionally a co-founder of stablecoin big Tether. The specifics are unclear, however there seems to have been a enterprise association between Epstein and Blockchain Capital, as one electronic mail claims the funding agency was paying Epstein and Richard Kahn, who was his longtime accountant, “a big number.”
Interesting electronic mail from Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong to traders discovered within the Epstein recordsdata. It’s from February 2016, throughout Bitcoin’s block dimension debate.
Armstrong talks about how Coinbase is working within the background to make sure the community will not be held again by “the early… pic.twitter.com/3MuxKyVhSz
— Kyle Torpey (@kyletorpey) February 1, 2026
One notable Coinbase investor update that Pierce forwarded to Epstein will be most relevant to those interested in the history of Bitcoin’s block size war. In the email, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong indicates the crypto exchange is working behind the scenes to make sure the Bitcoin protocol is not “held back by any of the early idealists.”
Roughly a 12 months later, Coinbase can be a signatory of the so-called New York Agreement, which was a plan for modifications to the Bitcoin community signed by most of the largest Bitcoin exchanges, pockets suppliers, and miners. The plan would ultimately be deserted previous to its completion, at the least partly because of the notion that the modifications would successfully implement a company takeover of the decentralized Bitcoin protocol.
one of the vital deplorable, sadistic people of the trendy period one way or the other drew the road at pumping crypto tokens lol
— Gwart (@GwartyGwart) February 1, 2026
In one other electronic mail trade with Bitcoin developer Jeremy Rubin that appears humorous in hindsight, Epstein would declare he had ethics-related considerations with the concept of profiting off of the pumping of crypto tokens. “I am more than happy to fund things but as i am high profile, it can’t be questionable ethics,” Epstein informed Rubin, indicating he could have been extra nervous about potential dangerous publicity. “Their deal is to pump the currency, it is dangerous.”
While the complete listing of crypto investments made by Epstein remains to be being clarified, these paperwork have supplied loads of intrigue when it comes to the disgraced financier’s interactions with among the most distinguished names within the crypto trade again in its earliest days of growth.
Of course, very similar to Republicans and Democrats, each crypto shill has interpreted the paperwork to suit their very own narratives, ignoring the truth that every one varieties of various individuals from various backgrounds have been prepared to look the opposite manner when it got here to getting one thing out of Epstein, whether or not or not it’s cash, recommendation, or connections.
