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The Epstein documents, totaling approximately 3.5 million pages and released by the US Department of Justice on January 30th, have shaken not only politics and business but also the cryptocurrency market. Claims such as “Satoshi is in the documents,” “Epstein created Bitcoin,” and even “The CIA is behind Bitcoin” quickly circulated on social media.
So what’s the truth? Do the leaked documents really establish a direct link between Bitcoin’s mysterious founder Satoshi Nakamoto and Jeffrey Epstein?
Some Images Circulating on Social Media Are Fake; There Is No Evidence That Epstein Is Satoshi Nakamoto
One of the most shared pieces of content on social media was an email allegedly sent by Epstein to Ghislaine Maxwell. The image showed a message dated October 31, 2008, which read:
The pseudonym “Satoshi” works perfectly. Our little digital gold mine is ready for the world.
However, it quickly became clear that this image was fake. Obvious technical errors, such as the presence of two “To:” lines in the document and the repetition of the header line in the recipient section, indicate that this is not a genuine email. Furthermore, the phrase “little digital gold mine” or the address mentioned in the email cannot be found in the archives of the US Department of Justice.
Yes, there are some documents in the Epstein files that mention the name “Satoshi.” Additionally, one document states that Epstein “spoke with some of Bitcoin’s founders.”
However, this doesn’t mean he founded Bitcoin. Having communicated with Bitcoin developers in 2016 doesn’t prove he wrote the protocol in 2008–2009. There’s no technical match between Satoshi’s known email correspondence and Epstein. There’s no connection between Epstein and Bitcoin’s initial code commits. No links have been found to early wallets believed to belong to Satoshi.
Verified information in the documents indicates that Epstein invested in the crypto ecosystem. Newly released emails reveal that Epstein invested $3 million in Coinbase in December 2014. This investment was organized through Tether co-founder Brock Pierce and Blockchain Capital.
Coinbase was valued at $400 million at the time. The company’s current market value is approximately $51 billion. Epstein also sold a portion of his investment back in 2018, converting approximately $15 million into cash.
Documents show that Epstein also invested in Blockstream, an early Bitcoin infrastructure company. Adam Back, one of the founders of Blockstream, confirmed the 2014 investment on social media. There are also some claims that Back is Satoshi Nakamoto, but these have not been definitively confirmed.
The documents also reveal that Epstein donated a total of $850,000 to MIT between 2002 and 2017. Of this amount, $525,000 went to the Digital Currency Initiative (DCI) within the MIT Media Lab.
In 2015, when the Bitcoin Foundation experienced a financial crisis, some Bitcoin Core developers joined MIT DCI. These developers included Wladimir van der Laan, Gavin Andresen, and Cory Fields.
However, it is stated that the developers were unaware of the source of the donation and received their salaries directly from MIT. Because Bitcoin’s governance structure is decentralized, it is technically impossible for a single donor to gain control over the protocol.
So, what’s the answer to the question, “Is Epstein Satoshi Nakamoto?” In short, no. The current evidence offers no technical clues that Jeffrey Epstein wrote Bitcoin’s whitepaper, mined the first blocks, or controlled Satoshi’s cryptographic keys.
The Epstein Papers do not show that crypto technology itself is at risk. The Bitcoin protocol, designed by Satoshi Nakamoto, has a decentralized structure. The network continues to operate independently of any single individual, donor, or investor. Open-source networks like Bitcoin and Ethereum continue to operate independently of early funding structures. This is seen as one of crypto’s greatest points of resilience.
*This is not investment advice.
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