Jeffery Epstein, the infamous American financier and convicted sex offender, dabbled in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin before his high-profile arrests and eventual demise. In recent weeks, new documents from Epstein’s estate are being unsealed – some of which trace his connection to digital assets and concerns he had around their use.
Epstein had been looking for government insights around crypto handling, fresh emails recovered from his vault show. His mails on the topic showed he was interested in launching his own token. Additionally, he seemingly wanted to keep check on crypto-related regulatory developments in the U.S.
In order to get related information, Epstein was keeping in touch with Steve Bannon – who in 2017 served as the chief White House strategist for Donald Trump during his first tenure as the U.S. President.
Epstein’s crypto connect
Emails from the conspicuous capitalist addressed to Bannon have reportedly highlighted his concerns around crypto taxes and crypto links to terrorism finance.
His correspondence with Bannon showed he wanted to know which government agency was overseeing crypto-related developments in the U.S. in 2018. To this, Bannon informed him that not the Treasury, but the National Security Council was upto the job at the time.
Last week, The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released documents spanning 20,000 pages from the infamous Epstein estate that served as the epicentre to the child trafficking and prostitution scandals that the billionaire had confessed to during the investigations in 2008 and later in 2019.
Along with Bannon, the Epstein files coming to light show him having crypto-related conversations with a number of people who now hold influential positions in the digital assets market.
LinkedIn co-founder and early crypto advocate Reid Hoffman along with Tether co-founder Brock Pierce and PayPal co-founder/ venture capitalist Peter Thiel have also been named in Epstein-related documents including Elon Musk and other political and industrialist figures.
Public reactions
Screenshots of Epstein’s crypto-related conversations have started to emerge on social media, sparking discussions.
Among other prominent names on the Epstein files, U.S President Donald Trump’s name has been repeated multiple times. Trump was part of Epstein’s wedding to Marla Maples in 1993 and his name is also part of the flight logs on Epstein’s private jet in the 1990s.
In a fresh development, however, President Trump has urged his fellow Republicans in the Congress to vote in favour of the release of the Epstein files. This stance is a total U-turn from his previous stance on the matter – wherein he has been known to have dismissed his connection with the Epstein scandal as a Democratic smear campaign.
Epstein died by suicide under police custody at New York City’s Metropolitan Correctional Centre (MCC) on August 10, 2019. As per records, he hanged himself to death in his cell while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges. He had previously attempted to unalive himself within his cell in July 2019 as well.