DOJ files reveal Epstein claimed ties to Bitcoin’s founders while pitching Sharia-compliant digital currency
Newly released Department of Justice documents suggest that Jeffrey Epstein portrayed himself as being in direct contact with the people behind Bitcoin, years after the cryptocurrency’s launch and well before it entered the financial mainstream.
According to internal emails disclosed in the DOJ’s massive document release, Epstein claimed in October 2016 that he had spoken with “some of the founders of bitcoin,” and that they were “very excited” about a proposal he was advancing: a Sharia-compliant digital currency designed for use in the Middle East.
The 2016 email: Epstein pitches an Islamic finance “crypto dollar”
In an email dated October 13, 2016, sent from Epstein’s own address to recipients Raafat Alsabbagh and Aziza Alahmadi, he outlined a plan to build a new currency using Bitcoin’s underlying technology. The proposal centered on creating a digital asset that would mimic the role of the US dollar while being fully aligned with Islamic finance principles.
Epstein described two separate currencies in the message, one of which was explicitly Sharia-compliant and intended for “internal use among Muslims in the Middle East.” The concept was to engineer a digital unit that functioned like fiat money but embedded religious-compliance rules into its design, effectively merging blockchain technology with Islamic jurisprudence on finance.
The most striking element of the email, however, was Epstein’s assertion that he had engaged directly with Bitcoin insiders. He wrote that “some of the founders of bitcoin” had been briefed on the idea and were “very excited” about collaborating on the project.
The mystery of Bitcoin’s creators
That claim sits uneasily alongside one of the core mysteries in modern finance: the identity of Bitcoin’s creator. Bitcoin is attributed to the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto, who published the original white paper in 2008 and disappeared from public communication around 2010. To this day, no verifiable, widely accepted identity has been linked to Satoshi, and no credible evidence has surfaced proving who actually controlled the early Bitcoin keys.
Epstein’s reference to “some of the founders of bitcoin” therefore remains unverified and ambiguous. It is unclear whether he was referring to original early contributors, prominent developers, early investors, or simply using the phrase loosely to impress potential partners. The DOJ documents do not include any corroborating communication from the alleged “founders,” nor do they clarify whom Epstein might have meant.
Given the lack of confirmation and the long-running pseudonymity around Satoshi Nakamoto, researchers treat Epstein’s claim as unsubstantiated and potentially self-serving.
Epstein’s crypto connections predate the 2016 proposal
While his boast about speaking with Bitcoin’s founders is unproven, the DOJ files do confirm that Epstein had been following developments in cryptocurrency for years prior to that 2016 email.
As early as April 2013, Epstein received Bitcoin-related analysis via a forwarded message from Boris Nikolic. The email contained commentary by Tren Griffin, a writer and analyst who had been examining Bitcoin’s characteristics as a payment system and its broader economic implications.
Griffin’s analysis, circulated to Epstein, emphasized that Bitcoin’s value hinged heavily on network effects: the more people who used it, the more useful—and potentially valuable—it became. He stressed that Bitcoin lacked intrinsic value in the traditional sense and that its worth depended on the collective belief and participation of its users. This mirrors a core argument in much of the early Bitcoin literature: the asset’s price is driven by adoption, not by backing from tangible reserves or sovereign guarantees.
The 2013 document suggests that Epstein was at least passively consuming serious commentary about cryptocurrency during a period when Bitcoin was still considered experimental by much of the financial establishment.
A network reaching into tech and finance
The DOJ records also reveal that Epstein’s involvement with the crypto world was not limited to passive reading or one-off proposals. He maintained a network that intersected with influential figures in both technology and finance—many of whom were active in early digital currency discussions.
A notable example appears in a July 31, 2014 email from Austin Hill to Epstein, with Reid Hoffman and Joichi Ito copied on the message. Hill’s email, carrying the subject line “Stellar isn’t so Stellar,” raised red flags about the launch of Stellar, a blockchain-based payment network, and its relationship to Ripple, another high-profile crypto project.
Hill expressed concern that investors with stakes in both Ripple and Stellar could create structural conflicts and distort incentives inside the nascent ecosystem. The email effectively flagged the risk of overlapping financial interests in competing networks, at a time when cryptocurrency governance and transparency were still evolving rapidly.
Reid Hoffman, a co-founder of LinkedIn and a prominent technology investor, was one of the carbon copy recipients, alongside Joichi Ito, then director of the MIT Media Lab. Their inclusion in the correspondence underscores that Epstein was looped into conversations involving major figures at the intersection of venture capital, academia, and early crypto experimentation.
Sharia-compliant currency: merging Islamic law and blockchain
The 2016 email from Epstein framed his proposed currency in explicitly religious and regional terms. A Sharia-compliant digital currency would need to conform to key principles of Islamic finance: prohibition of interest (riba), avoidance of excessive uncertainty (gharar), and restrictions on investing in businesses considered haram, among other rules.
In practice, that could mean designing a currency whose underlying smart contracts or governance rules explicitly blocked interest-bearing products, speculative derivatives, or transactions with forbidden sectors. Epstein’s proposal described a digital unit that would “act like a dollar” in terms of everyday use, yet embed these compliance requirements in its structure.
Such an initiative, if genuinely pursued, would sit at the frontier of both regulatory and religious scrutiny. Islamic scholars are still divided on the status of cryptocurrencies, with opinions ranging from full endorsement under certain conditions to outright prohibition. A purpose-built Sharia-compliant coin would need rigorous scholarly review and a robust enforcement mechanism to be credible in Muslim-majority markets.
The DOJ files, however, do not show that Epstein’s proposal ever advanced beyond the conceptual or pitch stage. There is no evidence in the released documents that a prototype was developed, that formal legal or religious opinions were obtained, or that any regulatory pathway was pursued.
Unverified ambitions and image-building
Against this backdrop, Epstein’s claim about communicating with Bitcoin’s founders takes on a strategic dimension. His documented modus operandi in other areas involved cultivating an image of access, influence, and intellectual sophistication—often leveraging connections with high-profile scientists, business leaders, and politicians.
Positioning himself as someone who had direct lines to the people behind Bitcoin would have served that narrative, especially in 2016, when cryptocurrencies were transitioning from fringe curiosity to serious asset class. Claiming that these “founders” were enthusiastic about collaborating on a Sharia-compliant currency could have helped Epstein appear indispensable to potential partners in the Middle East or among wealthy clients exploring new forms of digital finance.
Without corroborating evidence, it is impossible to know whether he had any substantive conversations with early Bitcoin contributors, or whether the claim was exaggerated to impress his correspondents.
The broader DOJ document trove
The emails are part of a far larger cache: approximately three million files released by the Department of Justice, covering Epstein’s associates, business operations, and personal network. The scale of the release means that investigators, journalists, and researchers are still combing through material, flagging references to digital assets, technology ventures, and financial experiments that have, until now, remained opaque.
Within this trove, cryptocurrency appears not as Epstein’s primary focus, but as one of several emerging technologies he tried to attach himself to. The documents show him adjacent to prominent figures in tech and finance, often at early stages of controversial or cutting-edge projects.
As more documents are examined, additional fragments of crypto-related correspondence may surface—offering further context on whether his digital currency ambitions were serious efforts, idle speculation, or simply another arena in which he sought to project influence.
What Epstein’s crypto emails tell us about the era
The details in these DOJ files also say something broader about the climate of the early-to-mid 2010s. That was a period when:
– Bitcoin was transitioning from obscure experiment to headline asset.
– New blockchains and payment systems like Ripple and Stellar were competing for investor attention.
– Wealthy individuals and institutions were cautiously probing the technology, often relying on advisors and tightly networked circles.
Epstein’s presence in these conversations illustrates how quickly crypto moved into elite financial and intellectual circles. Even individuals far outside the developer community were receiving technical analyses, exploring bespoke digital currency designs, and discussing regulatory and ethical constraints like Sharia compliance.
His 2016 email proposal fits into a broader wave of ideas about “localized” or “themed” digital currencies—coins tailored to specific legal, cultural, or religious needs. Many such concepts never progressed beyond decks and emails, but they highlight how the novelty of blockchain technology attracted ambitious, and sometimes opportunistic, actors.
The unresolved questions
Despite the new clarity the DOJ documents bring, several key questions remain unanswered:
– Who exactly did Epstein mean by “some of the founders of bitcoin”?
– Did any early Bitcoin developers, miners, or prominent community figures actually engage with his Sharia-compliant currency idea?
– Was there any follow-up work—technical, legal, or theological—on the Middle East digital currency proposal after the 2016 email?
– To what extent did Epstein’s broader crypto contacts translate into real investments, product development, or advisory roles?
For now, the record shows only that he was plugged into early crypto discourse, was sent detailed Bitcoin analysis, and attempted to leverage the technology for a niche financial product targeting Muslim-majority markets. Whether he truly had access to the elusive creators of Bitcoin is, like Satoshi’s identity itself, still unproven.
A snapshot of crypto’s early power networks
Ultimately, the DOJ files provide a revealing snapshot of how early crypto networks overlapped with powerful social and financial circles. Epstein, already embedded among wealthy financiers and tech figures, appears in the documents as a peripheral but persistent presence around Bitcoin, Ripple, Stellar, and digital currency theory.
His unverified claim of contact with Bitcoin’s founders, coupled with his Sharia-compliant currency pitch, underscores how the mythology of crypto—its anonymous origins, disruptive potential, and regulatory gray zones—created space for ambitious actors to position themselves as gatekeepers or visionaries.
As interest in the origins of Bitcoin and the history of early crypto grows, these documents add another layer to the story: not of who created Bitcoin, but of who tried to claim proximity to its creators, and why that claim carried such power in the first place.