In 2014, approximately $3 million was invested
Financial businessman Jeffrey Epstein, who died in prison in 2019 after being charged with sex trafficking of minors in the United States, was found to have invested about $3 million (about 460 million yen) in the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase in 2014. This can be confirmed from emails released by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) around January 30th.
The documents released this time are among newly released documents related to Epstein by the Justice Department, including emails from December 2014 regarding investment negotiations and transfer proceedings. According to these documents, Epstein invested in Coinbase’s Series C round through a company he controls, IGO Company, LLC.
The contents of the email confirm that Fred Ehrsam, co-founder of Coinbase, was aware that the investment was being made on Epstein’s behalf.
In a December 3, 2014, email, Mr. Airsam mentioned the opportunity to meet Mr. Epstein in New York to W. Bradford Stephens, co-founder of Blockchain Capital, which brokered the investment. “There will be time between 12 noon and 3 p.m. It is not necessary, but it is desirable to meet him at your convenience.”
Public documents also show that on the same day, Coinbase account information was transferred from Blockchain Capital to Darren Indyke, a close ally of Mr. Epstein.
According to the email, the investment was based on Coinbase’s then valuation of approximately $400 million. Coinbase’s market cap at the time of writing (February 4, 2026) is approximately $48.447 billion.
Additionally, according to the report, a list of assets from late 2014, released at the same time by the Justice Department, includes the entry “Purchased from Coinbase ($3,001,000/approximately 460 million yen),” which matches the name “IGO Company, LLC” appearing in the email.
In a statement, Blockchain Capital said, “There is no evidence that our fund received money from Mr. Epstein,” and that “Mr. Epstein invested directly in Coinbase through his own legal entity, separate from our company.”
The released documents include an email sent to Epstein on December 2, 2014, by Brock Pierce, co-founder of Tether and then head of Blockchain Capital and Crypto Currency Partners.
In the email, Pearce wrote of Coinbase’s funding round: “We have had another due diligence conversation with our co-founders. The first close closed today. We expect the round to be fully committed on Wednesday. We are available for 20% of the round for $12 million. This is the most ‘platinum’ deal in this space.”
The emails show that Mr. Epstein was not simply passively assigned the Coinbase investment, but was offered it directly by Mr. Pierce.
Adam Back also made a statement.
Following the release of the Justice Department documents, Adam Back, CEO and co-founder of Bitcoin-related company Blockstream, also spoke out about his company’s relationship with Epstein.
“Blockstream has no direct or indirect financial relationship with Jeffrey Epstein or his estate,” Buck wrote in a Feb. 2 post on X.
He said he met Epstein through Joi Ito, then director of the MIT Media Lab, during the 2014 Seed Round Investor Roadshow. Mr. Epstein was described at the time as a limited partner (LP) of Mr. Ito’s fund, which later acquired a minority stake in Blockstream.
However, Buck said, “Several months later, the fund sold its Blockstream shares due to concerns including potential conflicts of interest.”
However, the names of Buck and Blockstream co-founder Austin Hill appear multiple times in the released Epstein documents.
In a July 2014 email, Mr. Hill informed Mr. Epstein and Mr. Ito about Blockstream’s seed round, in which Mr. Buck was in CC ($0.18). In another document, Hill and Buck’s names appear in documents related to travel arrangements to St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands, close to Epstein’s private island.
Furthermore, Mr. Buck did not mention these travel-related emails in his social media posts.
While the fact that his name appears in the document does not in itself indicate illegal activity, critical voices have been heard on social media since its publication about the timing of Buck’s explanation and his past relationships, as well as calls for additional explanations.
Involvement in the crypto asset industry
The newly released documents also confirm that Epstein had extensive ties to the crypto industry.
Part of the document confirms that Hill told Ito and Epstein that their support for Stellar and Ripple was not good for their ecosystem.
Hill argued that supporting multiple competing projects in the same field at the same time “is like running two horses in the same race,” creating a conflict of interest and potentially negatively impacting Blockstream’s business, and urged the company to review or reduce its support.
Other email exchanges also show Epstein exchanging views with Peter Thiel, a prominent technology investor, about the value and properties of Bitcoin.
In a July 2014 email, Epstein said, referring to Bitcoin: “There seems to be little agreement about what Bitcoin is: is it a store of value, does it have intrinsic value, is it a currency, is it property, is it an architecture, is it a payment system? There are also conflicting goals such as anonymity and transparency (a public ledger).”
The documents also show that Mr. Epstein himself proposed a new monetary concept. In an October 2016 email, the company explained to Saudi officials that it envisioned two currencies for the Middle East.
The plan was to issue a physical currency called Sharia, intended for use within the Muslim community, and a Sharia-compliant digital currency, modeled after Bitcoin technology.
The documents released today were released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, passed by the US Congress, and contain more than 6 million pages of documents, images and videos. The Justice Department is required to gradually release unclassified materials related to the investigation and prosecution of Mr. Epstein and his co-defendant, Ghislaine Maxwell.
In 2014, during Blockstream’s investor roadshow, the company was introduced to then-MIT Media Lab director Joi Ito. Blockstream then met with Jeffrey Epstein, who was described at the time as a limited partner in Ito’s fund. That fund later invested a minority…
— Adam Back (@adam3us) February 1, 2026
Reference: Public Document 1, Public Document 2, Public Document 3, Public Document 4・Public document 5・Public document 6 ・ Public document 7
Image: Reuters
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