Bitcoin veteran Adam Back moved to shut down a fresh round of allegations after newly circulated “Epstein files” excerpts and screenshots reignited claims that Jeffrey Epstein intersected with Blockstream during the company’s earliest fundraising.
Back’s response on X framed the episode as a brief, indirect touchpoint routed through MIT Media Lab and its former director, Joi Ito, rather than a direct relationship with Epstein. “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,” Back wrote. “That fund later invested a minority stake in Blockstream.”
Back emphasized that the link did not persist. “A few months later, Ito’s fund divested its Blockstream shares due to a potential conflict of interest, and other concerns. Blockstream has no direct nor indirect financial connection with Jeffrey Epstein, or his estate,” he added.
Why Bitcoin OG Back Is Inside The Epstein Files
Notably, Epstein surfaced in Blockstream’s early fundraising. In a 2014 email, Blockstream co-founder Austin Hill told Epstein his seed-round allocation was being increased tenfold, from $50,000 to $500,000.
Separately, a travel-coordination email screenshot dated April 2014 includes Back’s name in a list of travelers and describes hotel-room needs for a St. Thomas trip. “Nice to ‘meet’ you. So we will be a party of 5 (Austin, Adam, Myself, Kelly, Ellaina).” The screenshot shows the message as part of a scheduling chain involving hotel arrangements, and it is one of the documents driving the current round of viral reposts.
Moreover, Epstein said that he “liked him” (Back).
A X thread posted Feb. 2, 2026 by “pigeon man” attempts to lay out what it calls an “EPSTEIN AND BITCOIN” timeline, tying early Blockstream meetings and investment claims to later disputes over Bitcoin’s scaling path.
1/ EPSTEIN AND BITCOIN – A TIMELINE
🧵THREAD pic.twitter.com/SPMlFfnL9J
— pigeon man (@B1LLYP1LGRIM) February 2, 2026
According to that thread, Epstein “meets with Adam Back and Austin Hill” in April 2014, describing the context as a meeting with executives of a new layer-2 company, Blockstream. The thread then claims that in July 2014, Epstein invested “at least $500,001” into Blockstream with Ito, and argues this created a financial tie to a company associated with influential Bitcoin Core developers.
The same thread highlights Blockstream’s October 2014 whitepaper release and names several developers it says were co-founders or co-authors, including Gregory Maxwell, Luke Dashjr, Pieter Wuille, and Matt Corallo. It also alleges that in 2015 Epstein had “encrypted conversations” with Austin Hill and others, claiming participants avoided email because “I don’t think the NSA deserves to hear what we say.”
The thread’s framing is designed to connect the social scandal to a much older technical and governance fault line: the 2016–2017 blocksize era. It argues that “keeping the block size limit” preserved demand for layer-2 systems and later claims “Bitcoin Core developers decide small blocks are what’s best for Bitcoin,” leading to a split.
At press time, BTC traded at $77,750.
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