The latest release of Epstein files by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) last week showed the disgraced financier had some involvement in the early stages of Bitcoin’s development, with confirmed early investments in Bitcoin technology company Blockstream and crypto exchange giant Coinbase. In fact, the earliest emails in the files date all the way back to 2011, only two years after the Bitcoin network launched and before the vast majority of the population had ever heard of it.
On top of that, the emails provided additional color on Coinbase’s involvement in Bitcoin’s block size war, Epstein’s ethical concerns with pumping crypto assets, and a meeting between Epstein and then New York Superintendent of Financial Services Ben Lawsky, who was developing crypto regulation, known as the BitLicense, at the time.
However, these emails involving early discussions around the development of Bitcoin and the crypto industry more generally have also led to the spread of wild conspiracy theories and false claims on social media, often in connection with proponents of alternative digital assets that are looking to drum up support for their favored tokens.
One of the silliest myths that has been spreading online is that Jeffrey Epstein is actually Satoshi Nakamoto, which is the pseudonym attached to the publication of the original Bitcoin whitepaper. There have also been claims about Epstein implementing some sort of backdoor in Bitcoin software through his indirect support of Bitcoin development via MIT Media Lab, even though the codebase is completely open source and anyone can go and check everything for themselves.
To be clear, there are no emails clearly connecting Epstein to Satoshi in the latest release from the DOJ. After all, why would Epstein be reaching out to his pal Jason Calacanis to get in touch with the Bitcoin people if he himself was the system’s creator? There are, however, a large number of falsified Satoshi-related emails circulating on social media. Nevertheless, bitcoin detractors have parlayed various discussions from the files into a new nickname for the crypto asset, “pedo coin.”
Many of the unsubstantiated theories around Bitcoin and Epstein come from supporters of Ripple’s XRP token, despite the fact that the aforementioned Lawsky served on the Board of Directors at Ripple for several years, and one email points to a potential investment by Epstein in Ripple and/or Stellar, which is a separate fork of Ripple.
Ripple has a long history of generally not being respected by Bitcoin proponents—and even other segments of the greater crypto space—due to the degree of centralization involved in its system and the fact that the company behind the project profits by simply creating liquidity to sell the XRP token. Additionally, there are longstanding theories (with supporting data) that someone operates a bot army in an effort to generate demand for XRP. However, there is no smoking gun in terms of definitive proof in that regard, and there are indeed real people who are supportive of this particular token.
Perhaps the most embarrassing conspiracy-laden post regarding the fallout from the Epstein files and how it relates to Bitcoin came from Vinny Lingham. Lingham took some of the Ripple talking points a step further in an effort to provide support for Bitcoin SV, which is the altcoin promoted by Craig Wright, who infamously used “industrial-scale fraud” in an attempt to prove he was Satoshi by suing many notable entities and developers in the Bitcoin industry (and losing).
The dubious nature of Lingham’s post, which was heavily called out in the replies, is particularly striking due to how long he has been involved with Bitcoin and crypto. For example, he previously launched the Civic crypto token in 2017, which is currently down around 97% from its all-time high, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
As a closing thought, it should be remembered that the identity of Satoshi does not much matter at this point, as the system is completely open source, can be verified by anyone, and has clearly taken on a life of its own, separate from its creator. Of course, while this is a reality that has been known for more than a decade, it will not end the unstoppable curiosity around Bitcoin’s true creator.
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