The convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein built his finance career through connections with the world’s most powerful people, from Apollo’s 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 to the still-emerging crypto industry with early investments in the U.S crypto exchange Coinbase, as well as the Bitcoin infrastructure company Blockstream.
It’s not clear how or when Epstein first developed an interest in crypto, but his investments in two of the industry’s most prominent names underscore his ability to cultivate ties in various pockets of tech and finance—even after his first conviction in 2008 on state charges for solicitation of prostitution with a minor.
Coinbase declined to comment. Blockstream did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Coinbase
In the early 2010s, Brock Pierce, a former child star who acted in the 1992 film The Mighty Ducks, 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.
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.
The new trove of documents released by the Justice Department reveal how, in 2014, Pierce approached Epstein about investing in Coinbase. The financier was intrigued. “[C]oinbase is closing a c round. this week? should i play? how hard?” he wrote in an email to Reid Hoffman, cofounder of LinkedIn and a well-known Silicon Valley investor.
Epstein eventually decided to back the nascent crypto exchange. “[T]ake $3 million,” he said in an email to Pierce about contributing to Coinbase’s $75 million Series C round in 2015, which valued the company around $400 million valuation. 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.
Brock Pierce, who left Blockchain Capital in 2017, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. “Mr. Epstein has never been an investor in any Blockchain Capital fund,” said a spokesperson for the venture investor.
Neither Pierce, Blockchain Capital, nor Coinbase have been linked to any wrongdoing with Epstein.
Early Bitcoin
Coinbase wasn’t the only crypto company that drew Epstein’s 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’s cofounders. Hill shared research with Epstein in a 2014 email, released by the DOJ, arguing for Bitcoin’s utility.
In a post on X on Feb. 1, Back wrote that Blockstream was introduced to Epstein via MIT Media Lab director Joi Ito, with Epstein investing in Blockstream in his capacity as a limited partner in Ito’s fund. Back said that Ito divested from its Blockstream shares due to “potential conflict of interest, and other concerns,” arguing that Blockstream has no direct or indirect financial connection with Epstein.
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.
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, the 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.
But before Saylor’s rise as a crypto evangelist, Siegal wasn’t impressed. “Saylor is a complete creep,” she wrote to Epstein, according to emails released by the DOJ. “He has no personality. Sort of like a zombie on a drug.”
Saylor would eventually rename his company Strategy. Spokespeople for his firm didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. “Who is Michael Saylor? The nightmare was years ago and I have no memory of this person,” Siegal wrote in a text to Fortune. She didn’t immediately clarify what she was referring to when she said “nightmare.”
Neither she, Hill, Back, Blockstream, Ito, nor Saylor have been linked to any wrongdoing with Epstein.
