Some of the oldest emails in the Epstein files related to Bitcoin include those from All-In podcast co-host and angel investor Jason Calacanis, whom Epstein reached out to in 2011 in an attempt to contact someone working on the two-year-old decentralized finance network. Calacanis pointed to two Bitcoin Core contributors, Gavin Andresen and Amir Taaki, who recently appeared on Calacanis’ show. This week in startups
.@Jason Said 10+ times that he only knew Epstein in the 90’s. He was actually helping Epstein during 2000 and 2010, even after he was convicted of child sex trafficking.
Man started VR company, donated to Trump: “Complete idiot, no moral guidance!”
Man rapes children: “Hey buddy!” pic.twitter.com/RTgG56dw0l
– Palmer Luckey (@PalmerLuckey) 31 January 2026
Palmer Luckey, founder and CEO of Anduril, pointed to this conversation with delight, as Luckey has a long-standing relationship with Calacanis. in all The co-host also published her own statement on X in an effort to distance herself from Epstein.
In the email, Calacanis cautioned Epstein that Andresen and Takei were not business types, saying, “So you know, these are people who are not trying to build a business. They’re crazy open source people who are fanatics. Their motivations are more in line with WikiLeaks or Wikipedia.”
According to one of Taki’s posts, “He wanted to invest in my company. I was in favor of it but my CEO looked at it and said no way. I wish I could read this email.”
There are also several emails linked to Epstein and Blockstream co-founder and former CEO Austin Hill. At one point, Hill emailed Ito, Epstein, and LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, upset over investments made by some Blockstream investors in some of its alleged competitors, namely Ripple and Stellar.
“Ripple and Jade’s new Stellar are bad for the ecosystem we are building and it hurts our company as investors who are backing two horses in the same race,” Hill wrote.
Epstein also received regularly forwarded emails of Coinbase investor updates from Blockchain Capital co-founder Brock Pierce, who was also co-founder of stablecoin giant Tether. The details are unclear, but there appears to have been a business arrangement between Epstein and Blockchain Capital, as one email claimed the investment firm was paying “a large number” to Epstein and Richard Kahn, his longtime accountant.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong’s interesting email to investors found in the Epstein files. This was from February 2016, during the Bitcoin block size debate.
Armstrong talks about how Coinbase is working in the background to ensure the network doesn’t lag behind “early on…” pic.twitter.com/3MuxKyVhSz
– Kyle Torpey (@kyletorpey) 1 February 2026
A notable Coinbase investor update that Pierce sent to Epstein will be most relevant to those interested in the history of Bitcoin’s block size wars. In the email, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong indicated that the crypto exchange is working behind the scenes to ensure that the Bitcoin protocol is not “stopped by any nascent idealists.”
About a year later, Coinbase would be a signatory to the so-called New York Agreement, which was a plan for changes to the Bitcoin network signed by many of the largest Bitcoin exchanges, wallet providers, and miners. The plan would ultimately be abandoned before completion, at least partly due to the belief that the changes would effectively enact a corporate takeover of the decentralized Bitcoin protocol.
One of the most reprehensible, sadistic humans of the modern age somehow drew the line at pumping crypto tokens. https://t.co/QLRAd6PtN6
– Gwart (@GwartyGwart) 1 February 2026
In another email exchange with Bitcoin developer Jeremy Rubin, which sounds ridiculous, Epstein claimed he had ethics concerns with the idea of profiting from pumping crypto tokens. Epstein told Rubin, “I’m very happy to fund things, but since I’m high profile, it can’t be of questionable ethics.” Hinting that he may be more concerned about potential bad publicity. “Their deal is to prop up the currency, it’s dangerous.”
While the full list of crypto investments made by Epstein is still being clarified, these documents provide considerable intrigue in terms of the disgraced financier’s interactions with some of the crypto industry’s most prominent names in the early days of its development.
Of course, like Republicans and Democrats, each crypto shill has interpreted the documents to suit their own narratives, ignoring the reality that all kinds of different people from different backgrounds were willing to look the other way when it came to getting something from Epstein, whether it was money, advice, or connections.
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