Newly surfaced emails from the Jeffrey Epstein archive that reference major early cryptocurrency projects have drawn sharp reactions from figures in the industry, highlighting how informal networks shaped the sector’s earliest days.
The emails, dated July 2014 and obtained from a Justice Department release, include correspondence from Austin Hill, a veteran entrepreneur and founding figure in the blockchain space, addressing concerns about competing investments in two prominent cryptocurrency initiatives.
The documents mention both Ripple (XRP)-linked interests and the Stellar project, igniting debate about early capital allocation and relationships between key players in the nascent industry.
Who Is Austin Hill
Hill is a Canadian entrepreneur and investor with a long track record in technology and cryptography.
He was a co-founder and early CEO of Blockstream, a blockchain infrastructure company established in 2014 that focused on advancing Bitcoin’s (BTC) underlying technology through innovations such as sidechains and support for scaling infrastructure.
Blockstream raised tens of millions from prominent venture investors and played a notable role in early Bitcoin ecosystem development.
Before Blockstream, Hill co-founded Zero-Knowledge Systems, a pioneering privacy-tech company in the 1990s that focused on anonymous networking and cryptographic systems long before blockchain technology existed.
In 2016, Hill stepped aside as Blockstream’s chief executive, with Adam Back, a British cryptographer and co-founder of the company, taking the leadership role.
The Email And Early Crypto Rivalries
The 2014 email referenced in the Epstein documents, first disseminated by industry-focused outlets, shows Hill raising concerns about funding overlap between Ripple and a new project being launched by Jed McCaleb, a co-founder of Ripple who later helped start Stellar.
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Reports describe Hill’s message as asserting that investors backing both initiatives could harm the ecosystem the authors were building.
Stellar, which was spun out of Ripple in 2014 with a focus on decentralized financial infrastructure, has long been viewed as a rival to Ripple’s cross-border payment ambitions.
Early investment decisions and conflicts over shared backers were part of that competitive landscape.
While the email chain includes Jeffrey Epstein’s name among recipients and copied parties, there is no evidence in the released documents that Epstein played any substantive role in decision-making about the projects themselves.
Industry commentators stress that the reference to his address reflects the social circles prominent tech investors and founders moved in at the time, not confirmed influence.
Industry Reaction And Broader Context
The resurfacing of these emails has prompted discussion across social media and industry forums about how loosely structured and socially interconnected early crypto finance was.
Former Ripple CTO David Schwartz weighed in on social platforms, suggesting that the revelation might be “just the tip of a giant iceberg” and that persistent negative narratives “hurt everyone in the space,” highlighting lingering sensitivity around reputation and legitimacy.
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