Did Adam Back or Blockstream have ties to Jeffrey Epstein?

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) continues to release millions of pages of Epstein related documents. The documents released on January 31 listed several people in technology and finance, including Adam Back and Austin Hill.

The duo are the co-founders of Blockstream, a blockchain technology company that has been operational since 2014.

Back is a cypherpunk known for creating Hashcash, a proof-of-work system that later influenced Bitcoin’s design. Hill is a tech entrepreneur who co-founded Zero-Knowledge Systems, a privacy-focused company.

Epstein exchanged emails with Blockstream co-founders

In the latest batch of the Epstein files, several email conversations and documents mentioned the Blockstream co-founders.

One document shows a July 2014 email where Austin Hill discussed the company’s seed round. Epstein and Joi Ito, the MIT Media Lab director, were mentioned, and Back was copied in the email.

Hill emailed Joi and Jeffrey. He said Blockstream is almost finished closing an $18 million seed round, which is 10 times oversubscribed.

He wrote, “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.”

Hill added that, “This is causing no small amount of headaches but @adam3us and I respect you both and have learned so much from you in our discussions we have everyone else a haircut to make room.”

Joi thanked Hill and stated that his legal team is doing the paperwork to finalize their Blockstream allocation.

In a second email conversation, Epstein asked Hill to call him directly in order to coordinate a meeting in St. Thomas, an island close to Epstein’s notorious private island complex. The emails showed Ritz Carlton reservations with Back and Hill’s names.

At the time, Hill told Epstein’s associate Daphne Wallace that he was willing to arrange their own flights for the trip to San Francisco after St. Thomas. He wrote to Wallace, “I mentioned to Jeffrey that I’m happy to arrange for our own flights since we are going forward to SFO after St Thomas.”

Adam Back denies financial ties to Epstein or his estate

Back took to X and explained that Blockstream has no financial ties, direct or indirect, to Jeffrey Epstein or his estate.

He gave more context, saying that in 2014, Blockstream met Joi Ito, then director of the MIT Media Lab, during its seed-round investor roadshow. Blockstream later held a meeting with Jeffrey Epstein, identified then as a limited partner in Ito’s fund.

The fund subsequently acquired a minority interest in Blockstream. Several months later, Ito’s fund sold its Blockstream shares. The reason is potential conflicts of interest and additional concerns.

“A few months later, Ito’s fund divested its Blockstream shares due to a potential conflict of interest, and other concerns,” wrote Back on Sunday evening.

It is unclear what the conflict of interest was between Blockstream and MIT Media Lab. Back did not reply to the request to comment or explain further on his social media.

In March of 2015, Hill emailed Epstein directly, asking for an introduction to Blythe Masters, a former JPMorgan executive who joined a Bitcoin-linked startup at the time.

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