Thread by @NFTethics

1/ This is a thread about Jeffrey Epstein and 13 ways he was connected to an interrelated network of people that created the foundations of today’s crypto space. This could indicate that the crypto ecosystem after 2013 (or even earlier) was part of an intelligence operation. 🧵

2/ In 2017 Epstein shared his thoughts on Bitcoin and a WSJ source mentioned that he “claimed to work for the U.S. Treasury Department on cryptocurrency”. We decided to analyze Epstein’s crypto connections, in light of and taking into account his criminal/financial “track record"

3/ In the 1980s, Epstein was involved in one of the largest Ponzi schemes: Towers Financial. Its CEO, Steve Hoffenberg was jailed for 20 years while Epstein escaped justice. They were introduced via a British arms dealer, Douglas Leese (son Nick is listed in Epstein's black book)

4/ Leese is a shadowy figure who played a key role in the £40bn Al-Yamamah arms deal, the largest in UK history. It is surrounded by controversy & bribes. Louis Freeh did the investigation for his client Prince Bandar (listed in Epstein’s black book) & defended Alan Dershowitz.

5/ From 2001-2007, Epstein was chairman/director of a secretive offshore entity called Liquid Funding, 40% owned by his former employer Bear Stearns (60% remains a mystery). It had $6.7bn in outstanding liabilities when it collapsed. In 2014, Epstein received a bank license.

6/ Epstein was part of the exclusive TLC & CFR, and Alexander Acosta claimed he “belonged to intelligence” & was above his paygrade. That he was allowed to spend 12/16 hours per day outside of prison could indicate his critical role. He flew to Riyadh during the 2016 US elections

7/ To rehabilitate himself after his 2009 conviction, Epstein organized the Mindshift conference in Jan 2011. Brock Pierce, who co-f(o)unded many crypto companies, was invited around Nov 2010 to talk about “virtual currencies”. Later he had more crypto interactions with Epstein.

8/ Pierce indicated that he was invited by the organizer of Mindshift, Al Seckel, a man with a checkered history & partner of Isabel Maxwell from 2007 until 2015, when he died under mysterious circumstances in France. Isabel is Ghislaine Maxwell’s sister and Pierce also knew her.

9/ Pierce has an unusual history. After a career as child actor he moved in with the later convicted pedophile Marc Collins-Rector, who organized parties with underage boys & prominent people in Hollywood. Pierce features in a documentary about this titled “An Open Secret”.

10/ When Pierce & Collins-Rector were criminally charged, they “fled” to Marbella. They were arrested 1.5 years later and the police found machetes, guns & child porn when they raided their villa. Pierce was never convicted, but never explained the guns & why he left to Spain.

11/ Pierce traveled to Liberia in order to get a passport for Collins-Rector and seemingly succeeded. This is unusual just like the fact that the lawsuit in which this was disclosed became sealed. Pierce started a crypto paradise in Puerto Rico, where Epstein had 2 bank accounts.

12/ Al Seckel’s picture on Wikipedia was taken by Joi Ito in 2009 at Kinnernet. Ito has deep ties to crypto/Epstein via his role at MIT Media Labs, which received funding by Epstein. MIT’s Digital Currency Initiative included influential Bitcoin coders (eg Wladimir van der Laan).

13/ Reid Hoffman was on MIT Media’s board & started to meet Epstein in 2013, introducing him to Peter Thiel. Both started to invest in crypto in 2014, attributed to Wences Casares, BTC’s “Patient Zero” in Silicon Valley who founded Xapo & mentored by Edgar Bronfman Jr.’s Endeavor

14/ Bronfman Jr & his father were close to Epstein. Thiel, “Silicon Valley's most secretive man”, sponsored Vitalik Buterin, who was working in Israel in 2013 and created Ethereum. Thiel moved out of crypto just before the Terra/Luna crash and joined again at the right time.

15/ The same applies to Dan Morehead’s Pantera & Mike Novogratz, who could reap an additional $1bn from the FTX bancruptcy. They all go way back to their college/Goldman Sachs/Fortress days with Pete Briger, who purchased $20 million BTC in 2013 with Fortress Investment Group.

16/ Epstein became involved with Fortress when they took over the assets of the Zwirn fund. Novogratz mentions in an interview that he was introduced to Ehud Barak via an investor (that could be Epstein). Barak has long standing ties to Epstein and is Novogratz’ mentor & investor

17/ Novogratz mentioned that Barak is also associated with Louis Bacon’s Moore Capital. Bacon, Novogratz & Alan Howard invested in BlockOne/Bullish with Thiel. The 2013 Federal Reserve Bank of New York committee records show the same names, incl Jes Staley, Epstein’s JPM banker.

18/ Barak has ties to violinist Itzhak Perlman, who accompanied Epstein to Interlochen Center for the Arts & flew on his plane. First reported by @_whitneywebb, his son Noah was Head of Compliance at Gemini, Binance & part of FTX-linked Moonstone Bank with Deltec’s Jean Chalopin.

19/ Barak invested in 2015 together with Epstein & Thiel in an Israeli company called Reporty Homeland Security (renamed to Carbyne). Epstein used opaque shell companies to do that via a close confident, Nicole Junkermann, a founding investor in Revolut & early investor in China.

20/ Junkermann invested in Consensys, Blockchain/com & Web3/NFT companies. She flew alone with Epstein from Paris to Birmingham (UK) in 2002 and @johnnyvedmore has written 3 in-depth articles about this. Evidence suggests they met at Foxcote House, an estate owned by Les Wexner.

21/ The meeting was likely about the Iraq war and involved US senators. The meeting took place on 1 Sept 2002, and on 4 Sept 2002, George Bush launched a campaign to convince the world that Iraq should be invaded. Bob Fitrakis showed there is more to Les Wexner than meets the eye

22/ We checked the dates of the 2001-2003 Clinton-Epstein flights to see where Clinton was on those days & also checked Alastair Campbell’s diaries. They indicate Clinton was likely on a tour to get support for the war in Iraq. Epstein’s trip to Cuba (Black Spring) is noteworthy.

23/ Junkermann is close with Len Blavatnik, CEO of Warner Music (purchased from Bronfman Jr.) & involved in the most profitable PE deal in history with Epstein’s pal Leon Black. Blavatnik has ties to crypto via his connections to Deltec’s Jean Chalopin (The NOD/Bahamas) & Binance

24/ When Binance was incorporated in Malta, it did so with a BVI entity Zokay Investment associated with Chiliz/Socios CEO Alex Dreyfus, who founded Winamax in 1999 with Junkermann. It was funded by the late Adidas CEO Robert Louis-Dreyfus, Junkermann’s boyfriend around that time

25/ Zokay has powerful shareholders, Xavier Niel, Bo Feng's Ceyuan & John Gleasure, until recently part of DAZN, owned by Len Blavatnik, whose ex business partner Steve Mnuchin (RatPac-Dune) appeared on a company form of an Epstein-linked modeling agency owned by Jean-Luc Brunel.

26/ Mnuchin is very close to Brian Brooks (ex Coinbase & Binance US) and has deep ties to Howard Lutnick, CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, Tether’s US asset custodian. Lutnick purchased a house from Epstein in 1998 & became his neighbor. Backed by Peter Thiel, he now owns Rumble.

27/ Epstein, Junkermann, Blavatnik, Wexner are connected to Harvard, where Lawrence Summers was president. Summers has a long standing relationship with Epstein & was board member/advisor of a16z, Xapo, Barry Silbert’s DCG, Block/Square & OpenAI. He was able to avoid any scrutiny

28/ Summers was deeply involved in the privatization of Russia in his role at Harvard & the World Bank, where he worked with Yuri Milner (DST Global) & Sheryl Sandberg (Facebook). Marc Rich was a mentor to the upcoming Russian oligarchs with ties to Russian OCGs (e.g. Mogilevich)

29/ Mogilevich worked with Robert Maxwell to launder money and Epstein likely worked with Maxwell around that time (see the video for proof). It could explain Epstein’s Austrian passport, as Austrian company Nordex was used & Jersey’s FIMACO (Maxwell used a Jersey trust company).

30/ Maxwell helped distributing PROMIS software to spy on foreign banks & intelligence agencies via a secret backdoor. Mogilevich was also involved. Epstein helped Ana Obregón to recover Drysdale’s funds after its collapse, possibly using PROMIS. Is crypto an evolution of PROMIS?

31/ Epstein seemed to have been active on the intersection of (military) intelligence, finance & tech/science, possibly funding covert operations via the private wealth of billionaires. In these secretive worlds ruled by zero-sum games, “ethics” is the enemy of “effectiveness”.

32/ This thread is consistent with previous threads that we have written that showed similar actors & meta-patterns, e.g.:

33/ Also this thread provides more background:

34/ @EricRWeinstein recorded an interesting episode a couple of years ago about Jeffrey Epstein and his suspicion that Epstein was likely a "construct of the intelligence community". It also addresses the importance of "responsible conspiracy theorizing".

35/ A new article that shows (some of) the same actors and metapatterns: