Latest / The Vault: The Epstein Files / Jeffrey Epstein and the Early Bitcoin Power Network (Part 1) (9/22/26)

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Jeffrey Epstein and the Early Bitcoin Power Network (Part 1) (9/22/26) · The Vault: The Epstein Files

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: What's up everyone and welcome to another episode of the
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Epstein Chronicles. When it comes to the world of finance,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: and especially the world of cryptocurrency, we're talking about a
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: landscape that is populated with some of the most smarmy,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: scummiest people on earth. And the people in the crypto
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: space make even the financiers look like decent people. And
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: you all know how I feel about the financial sector.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: But these crypto folks, they're a different breed. And it
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: seems like every time I interact with somebody who is
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: like locked into this kind of world, who is, you know,
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: into crypto and the whole thing, they're fucking weird. And
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: I hate to say it, but it's true. Now, I'm
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: not talking about people who dabble, you know, people who invest.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: I'm talking about people who make crypto their whole entire life.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: It's like their whole image, their persona, the whole thing.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: And it's almost like cult behavior, right? But what it
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: really is, is another means. for rich people to avoid
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: having to pay taxes. That's really what it comes down to. Now,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: of course, there are certainly benefits for the general public
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: and the blockchain is a great invention. I don't have
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: beef with crypto per se. It's the people who populate
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: the world of crypto that turn me off. And today,
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: Miami Herald has a gigantic piece about crypto, Jeffrey Epstein
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: and Donald Trump. So what we're going to do is
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: keep the whinging to a minimum and dive right into
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: this article. And like I said, this article was published
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: by the Miami Herald and the headline, Bitcoin, a Trump ally,
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: and a pitch for Putin. Inside Epstein's secret crypto ties.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: This article was authored by Shirso Dasgupta. When two Massachusetts
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: Institute of Technology students distributed $ 100 in Bitcoin for free
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: to undergraduates in 2014, It was the start of what
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: is now considered to be a landmark study in how
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: early users adopt a new digital currency. Yo, I remember
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: when Bitcoin first came out and it was like a
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: few cents. And I was saying to myself then, what
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: the hell could you possibly use this for? How do
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: you cash it in? How do you turn it into actual,
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: you know, funds? Well, as time went on, obviously, we
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: learned a lot more about Bitcoin and about crypto and
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: about how people were using it. And again, just to
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: be clear, I'm not somebody that says, you know, oh,
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: crypto should be illegal or anything like that. But I'm
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: also not naive. And when we're talking about the richest
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: people in the world, they're going to find every backdoor
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: you could possibly imagine to exploit anything they're doing. For years,
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: during his time as a Bitcoin pioneer, one of the
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: two students, Jeremy Rubin, corresponded with a person who had
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: secretly been spending millions of dollars to ingratiate himself in
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: scientific circles, Jeffrey Epstein. And look, Epstein was somebody that
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: was very, very interested in cryptocurrency. He knew the value
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: of it, and for the things Epstein was doing, as
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: far as coloring money and bundling, yeah, a very effective tool.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: Epstein shared his thoughts about cryptocurrency, offered Rubin advice, and
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: kept abreast of the workings of the MIT Digital Currency Initiative.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: which the university founded in 2015 to advance decentralized currencies.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: And look, the concept of that is great, right? I'm
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: totally for that. Decentralized currency? That sounds perfect. But of
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: course there's always hiccups, there's always caveats, and there's always
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: the other side of the argument. Despite various times describing
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: virtual currencies as the LSD of finance, that was clearly
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: illegal and a Ponzi scheme, Epstein didn't stop there. He
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: attended meetings in 2014 with the U.S. Treasury Department officials
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: to gain insight into the Obama administration's position on virtual
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: currencies and in the next three years, attempted to convince
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  Speaker 1: the Kremlin and the rulers of Saudi Arabia and Qatar
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  Speaker 1: to issue state-run cryptocurrencies. And this is what people don't
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: want to admit. You have a lot of people out
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: here who have hung their whole entire hat and the
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: whole entire view of the story on the misnomer that
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: Jeffrey Epstein is was Mossad. And that's certainly not the case.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: And if they got that wrong, and they're doubling down
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: on that, what else are they getting wrong and doubling
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: down on? And look again, just to be clear, I'm
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: not absolving the Mossad or Israel for their use of Epstein.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: They most certainly deployed him. They didn't build him though.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: And anybody who tells you differently is lying to you.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: Epstein's connections with figures in the digital currency world also
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: span the political spectrum. He aligned early with Brock Pierce,
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  Speaker 1: co-founder of Virtual Currency Tether, and an ally of President
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump, with whom Epstein corresponded about business ventures, and
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: sometimes women. Pierce recently unveiled a golden statue of President
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: Trump at National Doral Golf Club. Listen, the overlap between
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: Trump and Epstein is something that can't be ignored. And
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: it's something that still hasn't been fully explored. Because there
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: was a serious overlap And my guess is, at some point,
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: financials were merged, whether it was a business deal, whatever
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: it might be. And I have a sneaking suspicion, that's
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: one of Trump's fears, that something like that gets unearthed
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: in the documents. And I think that's what he's trying
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: to hide. Now, does that mean there's not more damning information?
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: Of course not. But I think a lot of this
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: has to do with situations that have to do with money.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: And unlike... Attacking a witness, or calling somebody a liar,
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: or saying something's a hoax, if we're following the money trail,
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  Speaker 1: that's a lot harder to do, isn't it? Epstein also
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: corresponded with Amir Taki, a British-Iranian anarchist and hacker. Taki
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: was an early Bitcoin pioneer, and in 2014, fought for
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: a socialist militia group battling the Islamic State in Syria. Well, okay.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: I guess. Seems like quite the adventure. Imagine waking up
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: one morning and saying to yourself, you know what? I'm
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: going to pack my shit and head to Syria and
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: fight against ISIS. Not exactly the kind of summer trip
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to. In the months leading up to
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: his arrest in Jersey in 2019 on federal sex trafficking charges,
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  Speaker 1: Epstein was discussing a virtual currency venture in Puerto Rico
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: with a bank founded by a flamboyant businessman who described
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: himself as a descendant of the Medicis of Florence, the
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: Renaissance-era family from Italy who financed the construction of St.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: Peter's Basilica in the Vatican and were art patrons to Donatello, Botticelli,
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: Leonardo da Vinci, and Michelangelo. And the Medici's were like
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: vicious-ass bankers. And back in the old days in Italy,
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: they had city-states. So it was like Genoa was its
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: own thing, Venice was its own thing, etc., etc. And
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: then these bankers loom large in the background. They were
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: really in charge, right? They were lending the money out
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: to the Dukes and the Barons, etc., etc., and they
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: were pulling the strings. And the Medicis, well, they were
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: the Rothschilds of their time. The Miami Herald's reporting is
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: based on the millions of pages of records released by
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: the U.S. Department of Justice earlier this year to comply
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which Congress passed in 2025.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: By 2011, Epstein's reputation was in tatters. He had been
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: registered as a sex offender after pleading guilty in Palm
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: Beach County in 2008 to two counts of soliciting prostitution,
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  Speaker 1: including a minor. Headlines blared about his illicit sexual activities,
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: and he was in the midst of settling several civil
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: lawsuits brought against him by alleged victims. I think we
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: can drop the alleged. If anybody got a payout, are
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: they still alleged? Or are they people that are being
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: confirmed as people that were harmed? I would say that
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: anybody who got a payout is somebody that was harmed
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: by Jeffrey Epstein, and we can drop the alleged. The financier, pedophile,
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: undertook a campaign to launder his reputation, spending millions, especially
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: donating to scientific research projects to rehabilitate his image. One
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: of his many initiatives was a conference hosted in January
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: 2011 on Little St. James, his private island in the U.S.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: Virgin Islands, called MindShift. The conference brought together an eclectic
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: group of participants ranging from software engineers to scientists. Among
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: them was Brock Pierce. A whole lot of people were there.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: I mean, how many dinners did this dude have where
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: he was with Elon Musk? Several at least. So it
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: wasn't like it was just, you know, a couple of
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: people hanging out. We're talking about some of the biggest
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: titans in the world of finance. Pierce, 45, a former
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: child actor who played a young Gordon Bombay in the
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: Disney film The Mighty Ducks, is now a Puerto Rico-based entrepreneur.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: He was involved in online gaming ventures before moving on
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: to digital currency. More recently, Pierce inaugurated Don Colossus, a
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: 22-foot gold leaf statue depicting Trump with his fist raised
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: in the air after the 2024 assassination attempt on him
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  Speaker 1: in Butler, Pennsylvania. What a dork. Let me raise a
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: statue of the president and try and gain some more
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: good ground with him. And then out of the other
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: side of his mouth, he'll tell us how he's an anarchist.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: Pierce and others use the image of the statue to
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: promote a meme coin, a type of cryptocurrency typically based
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: on a viral joke. or meme, whose worth is only
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: as much as people are willing to speculate and pay. Like,
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: I can't believe people even buy this shit. You want
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: to talk about a hustle, huh? Here's an idea. Go
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: buy some CDs or something. The fuck you doing buying
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: these meme coins? And then you get rug pulled and
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: you cry about it. As if you didn't know already
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: that that's probably what's going to happen. So it's always
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: crazy to me when people are buying these meme coins
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: or EFTs. Crazy as hell. An early advocate of Bitcoin,
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: Pierce gave a presentation on virtual currencies at Epstein's 2011 summit.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: Three years later, in late 2014, Pierce presented Epstein with
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: a deal to invest in Coinbase, a crypto exchange platform.
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  Speaker 1: Is this a deal that you'd like to participate in?
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  Speaker 1: He asked Epstein in an email on November 17th, 2014.
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  Speaker 1: If so, I need your permission to let the founder
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: know who you are, which would not be disclosed beyond that.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: So this was in 2014. Epstein was already a known diddler,
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: already a piece of shit, already a scumbag. But for Mr.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: Brock Pierce and the people over at Coinbase, no big deal.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: Because remember, the only sin is the sin of being poor.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: Epstein agreed. The next month, he invested $ 3 million through
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: a U.S. Virgin Islands firm that he owned. According to
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: a 2018 valuation of his assets, Epstein sold half of
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: his Coinbase stake that he bought at $ 1. 5 million that
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: year at 10 times what he paid for that share.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: Pierce did not respond to the Herald's request for comment.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: All right, folks, we're going to wrap up part one
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: right here. And in the next episode, we're going to
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: pick up with part two. All the information that goes
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: with this episode can be found in the description box.