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Epstein may not have fully understood crypto, but he helped shape its culture anyway.
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Additional reporting by Jessica Klein
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Epstein may not have fully understood crypto, but he helped shape its culture anyway.
David MorrisCloseDavid MorrisPosts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.
Additional reporting by Jessica Klein
If you buy something from a Verge link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement.
The tranche of Jeffrey Epstein emails and files released on January 30th tie the infamous pedophile, sex trafficker, and influence peddler to elite figures across the tech industry. The world of cryptocurrency is no exception. Epstein’s connections are intriguing, disturbing — and worth mapping closely.
With his interest first piqued as early as 2011, Epstein was ahead of the game on crypto. The financier understood it as a tool for clandestine payments and shady international finance, and found prominent community members more than willing to welcome him. Bitcoin wasn’t even invented until 2009, which means all of Epstein’s crypto connections formed after his 2008 guilty plea for solicitation of a minor.
Between 2011 and 2019, Epstein invested in major crypto exchanges and software development firms. He grew close with one of the most influential yet troubling figures in the field, Tether cofounder Brock Pierce. Epstein even forged ties with Bitcoin’s core development team and mused about changing the technology of Bitcoin itself.
But while Epstein courted established crypto players, less reputable branches of his network — notably those tied to Vladimir Putin’s Russia — promoted sketchy investments and likely contributed to massive investor losses during the 2018–2019 height of speculative crypto-mania. Most stunningly, it now appears that one of Epstein’s most eager recruiters worked in crypto marketing and PR, repping both major fintech firms and fly-by-night crypto schemes… while also allegedly scouting women for him to victimize.
Epstein’s interest in Bitcoin also aligned with his support for far-right politics. Bitcoin grew from the anarcho-libertarian “cypherpunk” movement, which dreamed of money free of the elite corruption that Epstein has come to represent. But most of the players Epstein supported, including the now publicly traded Coinbase, aligned instead with Elon Musk and Peter Thiel’s authoritarian and bigoted “tech right” — seemingly in part thanks to Epstein’s influence.
There’s no evidence Epstein succeeded in shaping crypto’s underlying technology, but his backing for its most extreme political tendencies has had major long-term impacts. That includes strengthening firms that have since become massive channels for funding to Donald Trump — himself, of course, extensively tied back to Epstein.
Brock Pierce: “I had a Great Time With the Girls”
The most ominous and significant of Epstein’s crypto connections was also likely his first: Brock Pierce.
Pierce is a cofounder of Tether, a so-called “stablecoin” that uses blockchain tokens to track US dollars. Epstein met him at the Mindshift Conference held on Epstein’s private island, Little St. James in 2011. A representative for Pierce told the The Hollywood Reporter that Pierce did not know who Epstein was at the time. Mindshift was organized by a literal illusionist named Al Seckel, and emails uncovered by Protos seem to show that Epstein viewed the event as a disaster. He found Pierce one of the event’s few bright spots.
Based on the emails, Pierce and Epstein grew closer over the course of 2011 and 2012, and by March of 2012 Pierce was apparently aware of Epstein’s real passion. “I had a great time with the girls,” Pierce appeared to email Epstein. Just two months later, Epstein offered to arrange a meeting between Pierce and “my new Russian” in Los Angeles. Pierce also appears to have met with Epstein and former Harvard president Larry Summers at Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse to discuss crypto at some point between 2008 and 2015.
Before meeting Epstein, Pierce had already faced allegations of involvement with the abuse of minors and possession of child sexual abuse material as a young executive at Digital Entertainment Network (DEN), an internet startup, in the early 2000s. In a 2014 letter about the incident, Pierce wrote that one accuser, Michael Egan, had used allegations against Pierce and director Bryan Singer “to extort money.” Pierce was never charged, and Egan later dropped allegations against other Hollywood figures. But Egan’s claims against Singer, who was closely associated with DEN, stood — and were later joined by other accusations.
Even Epstein’s ties to Steve Bannon may have begun with crypto
Incredibly, it may have been Pierce who connected Jeffrey Epstein to Steve Bannon, with whom Pierce had a business relationship dating back to 2005. While the origins of the Epstein-Bannon relationship are still murky, Pierce and Epstein appeared to discuss Bannon in December 2016 emails, in which Epstein refers to Bannon as a “pretty smart puppet master.” That’s well before what was previously understood to be the first link between Bannon and Epstein, a dinner arranged by author Michael Wolff in October of 2017.
Epstein’s interest in cryptocurrency was seemingly fueled by his continuing relationship with Pierce. In May of 2013, Pierce emailed Epstein about his efforts to buy the Japan-based Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox. The same year, Epstein enrolled in a general “Introduction to Cryptography” course offered online by Stanford. The course included “methods that ensure both confidentiality and integrity” in encrypted messaging and specifically covered public-key cryptography, a fundamental building block of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.
Also in May of 2013, Epstein emailed a third party about a possible new cryptocurrency in connection with Pierce, which Epstein describes as “Bit coin without the seediness.” This may have been a reference to what would become Tether. Pierce has said he had no operational role at Tether after 2015, but the firm has faced considerable criticism since then for misrepresenting the holdings backing Tether, and was fined $41 million in 2021 by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
