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Epstein Made a $3M Investment in Coinbase, DOJ Email Exposes

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Epstein Made a $3M Investment in Coinbase, DOJ Email Exposes

The recent speculation surrounding the Epstein Files, referring to a huge collection of documents related to the case of American financier Jeffrey Epstein, revealed that he made a $3 million investment in the crypto exchange Coinbase over a decade ago.

Per documents released by the U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein invested in Coinbase through Brock Pierce’s Blockchain Capital in 2014.

“Unclear if the deal actually went through, but there is a lot of discussion around investing in Coinbase in the files,” wrote Bitcoin researcher Kyle Torpey.

The Connection Between Epstein and Fred Ehrsam

The purchase allegedly secured Epstein a face-to-face meeting with Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam. In a leaked email screenshot, “Jeff” is mentioned along with Ehrsam, indicating that Ehrsam might have known about his involvement in Coinbase.

Source: X

“I have a gap between noon and 3pm today, but again, not crucial for me, but would be nice to meet him if convenient. Is it important for him,” Ehrsam wrote.

Four years later, in 2018, another email confirmed that Epstein got his Coinbase allocation. It appears that he later sold 50% of the stake back to Blockchain Capital for around $11M.

In 2008, a Florida state court convicted Epstein of procuring a child for prostitution and soliciting a prostitute.

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Blockstream Has No Connection, Says CEO

Meanwhile, Blockstream CEO Adam Back pushed back claims from Epstein Files regarding his ongoing connection with the convict.

“Blockstream has no direct nor indirect financial connection with Jeffrey Epstein, or his estate,” Back wrote on X.

One of the documents released by the U.S. DOJ corresponding to July 2014 says that Blockstream co-founder Austin Hill discussed the company’s seed round with Epstein and Joi Ito, then director of the MIT Media Lab.

“Hi Joi & Jeffrey; We are down to the wire on closing this round,” Hill wrote in an email. “We are 10x oversubscribed on an $18m seed round and Reid at the last minute told us to bump your allocation from $50k to $500k.”

In the Monday post, Adam Back noted that Blockstream met with Jeffrey Epstein, who was described at the time as a “limited partner in Ito’s fund.”

“That fund later invested a minority stake in Blockstream. A few months later, Ito’s fund divested its Blockstream shares due to a potential conflict of interest, and other concerns.”

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Crypto World

Ketman Project Identifies 100 North Korean IT Workers Working in Web3

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Ketman Project Identifies 100 North Korean IT Workers Working in Web3

The Ketman Project, funded by an Ethereum Foundation stipend, identified 100 North Korean IT workers and alerted about 53 projects employing DPRK operatives.

The Ethereum Foundation said it funded a six-month project that exposed 100 North Korean operatives who had infiltrated Web3 companies under fake identities.

The foundation on Thursday shared a recap of its ETH Rangers program, which was launched in late 2024 to provide “stipends for individuals doing public goods security work” within the ecosystem.

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One of the recipients used the capital to build the Ketman Project to focus on investigating “fake developers” embedded within crypto, particularly operatives from the People’s Republic of Korea.

During the six-month stipend period, the Ketman Project identified “100 different DPRK IT workers operating within Web3 organizations” and reached out to about 53 projects to alert them about having potentially employed active DPRK operatives.

“This work directly addresses one of the most pressing operational security threats facing the Ethereum ecosystem today,” the Ethereum Foundation said.

North Korean operatives have been plaguing the crypto sector, leading to billions worth of crypto stolen over the years. One of the highest-profile hacking groups from North Korea is known as the Lazarus Group.

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Ketman Project website articles on DPRK operatives. Source: Ketman Project

The Ethereum Foundation did not go into detail about how the Ketman Project was able to identify the DPRK operatives. However, the project’s website has an extensive range of articles explaining the types of “tactics, behaviors and operational patterns” the operatives deploy.

Related: CIA to integrate AI ‘co-workers’ to process intelligence, catch spies

They include technical red flags such as reusing avatars and profile metadata across multiple GitHub accounts, exposing unlinked email addresses during accidental screen sharing, and displaying default language settings, such as Russian, that contradict their claimed nationality.

Alongside identifying North Korean operatives, the Ketman Project also developed an open-source detection tool to identify suspicious GitHub activity and co-authored an industry-standard framework for identifying DPRK IT workers in partnership with blockchain-focused nonprofit organization the Security Alliance.

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