TL;DR
- Again denied monetary ties between Blockstream and Jeffrey Epstein or his property after a Jan. 30 DOJ launch just lately resurfaced names.
- July 2014 emails cited Blockstream’s 10x oversubscribed $18M seed spherical, lifting an allocation from $50K to $500K, plus St. Thomas journey references.
- Again stated Epstein was a restricted associate in Joi Ito’s fund that later divested; recordsdata additionally present Epstein discussing Bitcoin with Peter Thiel and pitching foreign money concepts.
Blockstream CEO and co-founder Adam Again moved to deal with freshly unsealed Jeffrey Epstein data that surfaced his title and that of co-founder Austin Hill. Again stated Blockstream has no direct nor oblique monetary reference to Epstein, or his property, positioning the difficulty as a governance clarification. The context is a Jan. 30 doc launch inside a wider U.S. Division of Justice disclosure effort, the place showing in recordsdata doesn’t by itself indicate wrongdoing. Again stated Epstein was a restricted associate in a Joi Ito fund that when held a minority Blockstream stake, later divested.
In 2014, throughout Blockstream’s seed-round investor roadshow, the corporate was launched to then MIT Media Lab director Joi Ito. Subsequently Blockstream met with Jeffrey Epstein, who was described on the time as a restricted associate in Ito’s fund. That fund later invested a minority…
— Adam Again (@adam3us) February 1, 2026
Epstein recordsdata and fallout
The filings embrace July 2014 e-mail correspondence about Blockstream’s seed spherical, with Hill telling Joi Ito and Epstein the increase was 10x oversubscribed on an $18M spherical and an allocation was elevated from $50K to $500K. The documentation reveals capital-raise logistics and relationship administration that now carry reputational threat in hindsight. Again was included within the e-mail loop. Separate unsealed supplies referenced journey reserving confirmations for Again and Hill to St. Thomas, close to Epstein’s non-public island, and Hill wrote that they’d organize their very own flights earlier than persevering with to SFO, underneath more durable disclosure optics.
In a Sunday put up on X, Again stated Blockstream met Ito throughout its 2014 investor roadshow and later met Epstein as a result of he was introduced as a restricted associate in Ito’s fund. Again’s framing is that any monetary linkage ended when the fund divested its Blockstream shares over conflict-of-interest issues. He didn’t deal with the St. Thomas journey e-mail, whereas Hill reposted Again’s assertion. Even so, criticism unfold throughout social media, with some arguing the response got here solely after the paperwork surfaced and others urgent for extra element about prior interactions, amid credibility restore efforts.
The unsealed batch additionally outlines Epstein’s broader crypto involvement and curiosity. Past Blockstream, the data depict Epstein participating high-profile contacts on Bitcoin, rival tasks, and even proposed currencies. Hill instructed Ito and Epstein that Stellar and Ripple have been unhealthy for Blockstream’s ecosystem and warned towards backing two horses in a single race. One other thread reveals Epstein emailing Peter Thiel about what Bitcoin is. In 2016 he pitched “the Sharia” fiat and a Sharia-compliant digital foreign money, because the Epstein Recordsdata Transparency Act drove DOJ publication of over 6M data. Names included Kevin Warsh and Michael Saylor.
