Newly released emails show that Back was invited to Epstein’s island, and that Epstein had a favorable opinion of the Bitcoin pioneer.
Convicted sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein invited longtime Bitcoiner Adam Back and his co-founder Austin Hill to visit his island after investing in their Bitcoin technology company Blockstream in 2014, according to newly released files from the U.S. Department of Justice.
Back is a British cryptographer best known for inventing Hashcash, a proof-of-work system that later became a core building block of Bitcoin. He’s also co-founder and CEO of Blockstream, where he works on Bitcoin infrastructure, cryptography, and scaling technologies.
The email exchange began with Epstein asking Hill on to call him on April 15, 2014 and providing a phone number. Two hours later, Hill responded saying he had tried to call him but was told that he had already left.
Hill alluded to tentative plans they’d made to meet in New York that Sunday, but said it was a “no-go” because of commitments on the West Coast, but added that “Fri/Saturday on the island are still possible.”
In a separate email from Epstein sent to early Bitcoin developer Amir Taaki on April 19, 2014, Epstein told Taaki that he’d just had “Andy Back,” likely referring to the Blockstream co-founder, “on my island this weekend.”
Epstein’s private Caribbean island, Little Saint James, has since become a central symbol of his abuse network. Located in the U.S. Virgin Islands, the island was repeatedly identified by survivors and prosecutors as a site where Epstein trafficked and sexually abused underage girls, often flying them in on his private jet and housing them on the property.
Court filings, victim testimony, and later civil lawsuits describe the island as a controlled environment where Epstein exercised near-total authority over guests, staff, and victims.
Back made a statement over the weekend — following the release of the emails — to say that Epstein’s investment in Blockstream was made possible by Joichi Ito, who was the MIT Media Lab Director at the time.
“In 2014, during Blockstream’s seed-round investor roadshow, the company was introduced to then-MIT Media Lab director Joi Ito. Subsequently Blockstream met with Jeffrey Epstein, who was described at the time as a limited partner in Ito’s fund. That fund later invested a minority stake in Blockstream,” Back wrote in a post on X.
“A few months later, Ito’s fund divested its Blockstream shares due to a potential conflict of interest, and other concerns,” Back added. “Blockstream has no direct nor indirect financial connection with Jeffrey Epstein, or his estate.”
Back did not mention plans to visit Epstein’s island or whether the trip ultimately took place. Neither Blockstream spokespeople nor Back immediately responded to a request for comment from Decrypt.
In July 2014, there was another email exchange between Hill and Epstein’s staff about the convicted sex offender traveling to Montreal to attend a stand-up comedy event called “The Nasty Show.” Epstein’s staff ultimately relayed that he couldn’t make it.
Hill, who said he attended with co-founder Back, emailed the next day with a recap, writing that “the Blockstream crew were well entertained” by the comedian.
Later that year, in November 2014, seven months after the planned island visit, Italian venture capitalist and early-stage tech investor Vincenzo Iozzo emailed Epstein to ask what he thought of Back.
The lightly redacted email exchange, which was released by the Department of Justice on Friday, shows that Epstein replied with just two words: “like him.”
There’s no publicly available information that indicates Iozzo personally invested in Blockstream. The company also raised money from Khosla Ventures, one of Silicon Valley’s best known venture firms, along with Horizons Ventures, AXA Strategic Ventures, and Grayscale parent company Digital Currency Group.
The connection between Epstein and Ito, who ran the MIT fund that he was invested in, isn’t new. Ito admitted in a 2019 letter that he met the convicted sex offender in 2013 while fundraising for MIT.
“I want you to know that in all of my interactions with Epstein, I was never involved in, never heard him talk about, and never saw any evidence of the horrific acts that he was accused of,” Ito wrote in his letter. He also vowed to raise an amount of money equivalent to the funding he accepted from Epstein and direct it to nonprofit organizations supporting survivors of trafficking.
When the letter came out in 2019, two high-profile MIT employees quit, according to reporting by Business Insider.
While he was at MIT, Ito was primarily known for the E14 Fund. It was an independent, non-profit fund designed to support startups created by MIT Media Lab graduates. But Ito also managed corporate funds for the lab while he was attached to MIT, which is how he came into contact with Epstein.
The latest batch of files released by the Department of Justice also revealed that Epstein was an early investor in crypto exchange Coinbase, as Decrypt reported Monday.
Epstein invested $3 million in the firm in 2014, when it was valued at $400 million, though he sold half of his share to Blockchain Capital in 2018 for $15 million. Coinbase, which went public in 2021, is currently valued above $47 billion.
