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The convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein built his finance career through connections with the world\u2019s most powerful people, from Apollo\u2019s Leon Black to former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak. But newly released documents from the Department of Justice reveal that before his 2019 suicide in federal prison, Epstein also cultivated ties with the still-emerging crypto industry, with early investments in U.S crypto exchange Coinbase as well as Bitcoin infrastructure company Blockstream.\u00a0The investment in Coinbase represented less than 1% of the company\u2019s equity, and Epstein\u2019s stake in Blockstream through another fund was not disclosed. \u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not clear how or when Epstein first developed an interest in crypto, but his investments in two of the industry\u2019s most prominent names underscore his ability to cultivate ties in various pockets of tech and finance\u2014even after his first conviction in 2008 on state charges for solicitation of prostitution with a minor.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Coinbase declined to comment. Blockstream did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
In the early 2010s, Brock Pierce, a former child star who acted in the 1992 film The Mighty Ducks, <\/em>began advising Epstein on a series of crypto investments through his role as managing partner at a nascent venture capital company called Crypto Currency Partners. The investment firm would later rebrand as Blockchain Capital and become one of the most prominent investors in the crypto industry.<\/p>\n Pierce was an early crypto booster who had cofounded the stablecoin company Tether, which would eventually grow to become a money-printing behemoth whose dollar-pegged token has become the most popular stable asset in crypto.<\/p>\n The new trove of documents released by the Justice Department reveals how, in 2014, Pierce approached Epstein about investing in Coinbase. The financier was intrigued. \u201cCoinbase is closing a c round. this week? should i play? how hard?\u201d he wrote in an email to Reid Hoffman, cofounder of LinkedIn and a well-known Silicon Valley investor.<\/p>\n Epstein eventually decided to back the nascent crypto exchange. \u201cTake $3 million,\u201d he said in an email to Pierce about contributing to Coinbase\u2019s $75 million Series C round in 2015, which valued the company at around $400 million. Later emails indicate that Epstein did invest in the crypto exchange, which eventually went public and has a market capitalization of about $43 billion. In 2018, Blockchain Capital reached out to Epstein to see whether the firm could buy his $3 million investment at a higher valuation. A trust associated with the financier sold $15 million of Coinbase equity to Blockchain Capital that year, according to a spokesperson for the venture firm.<\/p>\n Pierce, who left Blockchain Capital in 2017, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. \u201cMr. Epstein has never been an investor in any Blockchain Capital fund,\u201d said a spokesperson for the venture investor.<\/p>\n Neither Pierce, Blockchain Capital, nor Coinbase have been linked to any wrongdoing with Epstein.\u00a0<\/p>\n Coinbase wasn\u2019t the only crypto company that drew Epstein\u2019s attention and money. According to the emails released by the DOJ, Epstein also invested in Blockstream, which helped build early Bitcoin infrastructure, in 2014. Epstein communicated with Austin Hill and Adam Back, Blockstream\u2019s cofounders. Hill shared research with Epstein in a 2014 email, released by the DOJ, arguing for Bitcoin\u2019s utility.\u00a0<\/p>\n In a post on X on Feb. 1, Back wrote that Blockstream was introduced to Epstein via former MIT Media Lab director Joi Ito, with Epstein investing in Blockstream in his capacity as a limited partner in Ito\u2019s fund. Back said that Ito\u2019s fund divested from its Blockstream shares owing to \u201cpotential conflict of interest, and other concerns,\u201d arguing that Blockstream has no direct or indirect financial connection with Epstein.\u00a0<\/p>\n Ito, whose MIT Media Lab hosted early Bitcoin development, previously faced blowback for his ties to Epstein and resigned from a number of positions in 2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n Epstein, though, appears to have missed out on getting in early on what would become one of the biggest Bitcoin companies. In 2010, Peggy Siegal, a publicist with whom he worked, crossed paths with Michael Saylor, founder of the software company then called MicroStrategy. Saylor would later go on to pivot his company to become one of the largest holders of Bitcoin in the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n But before Saylor\u2019s rise as a crypto evangelist, Siegal wasn\u2019t impressed. \u201cSaylor is a complete creep,\u201d she wrote to Epstein, according to emails released by the DOJ. \u201cHe has no personality. Sort of like a zombie on a drug.\u201d<\/p>\n Saylor would eventually rename his company Strategy. Spokespeople for his firm didn\u2019t immediately respond to a request for comment. \u201cWho is Michael Saylor? The nightmare was years ago, and I have no memory of this person,\u201d Siegal wrote in a text to Fortune<\/em>. She didn\u2019t immediately clarify what she was referring to when she said \u201cnightmare.\u201d<\/p>\n Neither she, Hill, Back, Blockstream, Ito, nor Saylor have been linked to any wrongdoing with Epstein.\u00a0<\/p>\n Update, Feb. 6, 2026: This story was updated to clarify Epstein\u2019s stake in Coinbase and Blockstream. <\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n #Epsteins #crypto #ties #Documents #reveal #early #Coinbase #investment #links #early #Bitcoiners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The convicted sex offender Jef… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19596,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[12119,4380,1227,1094,5401,1325,12118,22,3253,4327,2976,1517],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19595"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19595\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Early Bitcoin\u00a0<\/h2>\n