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Writer: Deana

Editor: Miranda

Not a place you want to be. It’s hard not to go full tinfoil hat with everything surrounding the Epstein files, and in particular the crypto stuff feels like a (dark, cursed) rabbit hole. Here’s a roundup of the speculation so far from the latest document release.

First off, Epstein possibly funded Bitcoin Core developers via MIT donations around 2015, a theory that has been circulating for some time. However, just because he funded the devs does not mean that he or his cronies influenced the code, says Bruce Fenton, former executive director of the Bitcoin Foundation. I buy this, for the record, mostly because in Bruce’s words “Bitcoin code is transparent and has lots of eyes on it.”

Next, Epstein was an early investor in Coinbase around 2014, seemingly confirmed in 2018 when he sold his position at a 10X return to Blockchain Capital.

(Timeline note: Jeffrey Epstein had pled guilty in 2008 to state sex-offense charges involving a minor.)

Finally, Ripple and Stellar were framed as competitive threats. This is getting the XRP army all riled up, which is something they love to do. Ethereum is also mentioned, though with seemingly no direct connection to Epstein et al.

Of course a mention in these files doesn’t implicate wrongdoing, but it continues to suck to see ties to the industry, and it is resurfacing at a bad time considering the market. Also important to note that there is no confirmed primary-source evidence that Epstein actually used Bitcoin or crypto, so far. And no I don’t think Jeffrey Epstein is Satoshi Nakamoto.

Reheating Nachos. Both of the big prediction markets decided to give out free groceries this week in NYC as a marketing-slash-CSR effort. Who ripped off whom? We have our suspicions.

Quick Hits.