Newly released emails have cast a harsh light on the early, precarious days of Bitcoin, revealing a shocking and previously unknown financial benefactor: Jeffrey Epstein. According to correspondence released by the House Oversight Committee, the convicted sex offender helped finance MIT’s Digital Currency Initiative (DCI), the very group that stepped in to fund the development of Bitcoin Core at a moment of crisis.
The emails, sent in 2015, show a direct line from the disgraced financier to MIT Media Lab Director Joichi Ito, who celebrated the acquisition of Bitcoin’s key developers as “a big win for us.” This disclosure adds a grim and complex dimension to the history of the code that forms the basis of Bitcoin, and implies that it was completed with backing from money tied to one of the most infamous criminals in our age.
The 2015 Vacuum
To understand the significance of this funding, one has to go back to early 2015. The Bitcoin Foundation, the non-profit then responsible for bankrolling the software’s key developers, was in a state of terminal collapse. It had “blown up,” as Ito described it, following internal scandals and declarations of bankruptcy.
This implosion left Bitcoin’s most important software—the “reference implementation” that underpins the entire network—vulnerable. Its top-five developers, described by Ito as being “like Linus Torvalds of Linux,” were suddenly without a paycheck. According to the emails, this created a power vacuum where “many organizations scrambled to… ‘take control’ of the developers.”
‘Thanks’: A Triumphant Email to Epstein
On April 25, 2015, just ten days after the MIT Media Lab officially formed its new Digital Currency Initiative (DCI), Joi Ito sent a triumphant email to Jeffrey Epstein. He explained that “Gavin, Wladimir and Cory” (referring to lead developers Gavin Andresen, Wladimir van der Laan, and Cory Fields) had “decided to join the Media Lab.”
He called this “a big win for us,” noting that the Lab’s “neutral position” and “strong research focus” were key. But the most damning line was a direct acknowledgment of Epstein’s role. “Used gift funds to underwrite this which allowed us to move quickly and win this round,” Ito wrote to Epstein. “Thanks.”
Epstein’s reply was simple and chilling: “gavin is clever.”
A History of Obscured Money
This direct link stands in stark contrast to MIT’s own internal investigation, which had previously described Epstein’s connection to the DCI as “cursory” and found only a single, unrelated meeting. The new emails confirm what investigative journalist Ronan Farrow reported in 2019—a story that led to Ito’s resignation.
Farrow claimed that Epstein, who officially only donated $850,000 to MIT, had actually funneled $7.5 million to the Media Lab, including a massive $5 million anonymous donation from his associate, the billionaire Leon Black.
‘Trying to get more Black for you’
The newly released emails appear to confirm this funneling operation. In a February 2019 exchange, Ito wrote to Epstein, “Just to let you know. We were able to keep the Leon Black money, but the $25K from your foundation is getting bounced by MIT…”
Epstein’s reply was blunt: “No problem- Trying to get more black for you.”
This exchange implies that Epstein wasn’t merely a benefactor but a trade agent, a rainmaker who leveraged his enormous and poisonous connections to clean up his reputation and expand his influence among America’s elite institutions.
A Tainted Legacy for Bitcoin
For the community within Bitcoin, this news exposes an uncomfortable reality. The developers themselves, to provide an example, such as Wladimir van der Laan were unsure of where the funding ultimately came from, emphasizing a lack of transparency about DCI’s finances. The DCI, by all accounts, gave these developers a “stable and sustainable” home to continue to work on the code securing billions of dollars today. But the knowledge that the pillar of that stability came from “gift funds” from Jeffrey Epstein, now taints this chapter in Bitcoin history. It reveals that even a project created on the ideals of decentralization and transparency was, at a certain point, saved by the very “trusted third parties” it envisioned replacing.
