Part Two: How Jeffrey Epstein Helped Build the Modern World

Robert explores how Jeffrey Epstein used his friendship with Brock Pierce and his influence with Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick to push for micro transactions in video games to "indoctrinate" children.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
As media.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Ah, welcome pod to Behind the Bastard Cast episodes Epstein, Jeffrey,
I'm Robert Evans.

Speaker 3 (00:14):
Hi.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
How are you doing? Andrew T?

Speaker 4 (00:17):
Like that you said the last sentence in syntactical order. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Yeah, it's upsetting, isn't it?

Speaker 4 (00:23):
Ever? Robert? Am I?

Speaker 2 (00:25):
What am I up to? What's my plan? You know?
What's my ultimate goal? What am I working towards here
by doing this? I don't know, Andrew T. I just
don't know. How are you okay?

Speaker 4 (00:36):
I just ate the top half of a tomato, and
I actually feel pretty energized.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Best half of a tomato, to be honest, like the
bottom half of a tomato. That's for chumps idiots.

Speaker 4 (00:45):
Really, Yeah, stem side, you gotta nibble around the stem.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
Gotta nibble the stem, baby. I'm always saying that. That's
that's why, that's my motto, Baby, nibble the stem. You
know you put it on T shirts? That's right? Wow, Andrew?
Where can people find you on the internet? Before we
get into our episodes for Today, where we continue the
tale of Jeffrey Epstein birthing the modern world, man birthing
the modern world.

Speaker 4 (01:08):
Thanks, I guess I don't know Andrew on social media.
But I do you know as this racist the podcast
and we have our premium shows at Suboptimalpods dot com,
which are fun. We've been doing one called starter Trek,
which is really fun, a little how slightly insider look
at star Trek my lovest Tawny Newsome knows everything about
Star Trek. She writes on Startrek Academy. She was the

(01:30):
voice of Beckett Mariner other stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:33):
I think Keeper of the Flame. Well, I also want
to send people somewhere. The Artist Mentorship Program in Portland
helps primarily youth experiencing homelessness, get essential supplies and job training,
and have music and art programs at the heart of
their work. If you want to support the good things
that they do and have done for more than thirty years,

(01:55):
go to AMPPDX dot org. That's AMPPDX dot org. Okay,
that's all that, Robert.

Speaker 4 (02:01):
I appreciate the chance to before all the Haydes shit
gets set. Yes, yes, do you like the separation.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
Yeah, it's important to plug before the Heinus shit gets said,
because people are going to feel markedly less good about
the world once we continue talking about Jeffrey Epstein creating
all of the bullshit that you deal with on a
daily basis as a person in society. Sorry about that,

(02:34):
so Part two. One of the frustrating things about delving
into the Epstein files is that you are repeatedly confronted
by the fact that Jeffrey Epstein was a person, and
like any person, he had nicknames for people in words
that he used in an idiosyncratic fashion that only his
friends and his social circle fully understood. Everyone's like this,

(02:55):
but it's weird to be confronted by these very human
aspects of the life of a monster. It's frustrating because
it means there's a lot that will never fully understand.
For example, Epstein started sending girls, and again, since the
term girls was used in the email, and this is
Jeffery Epstein, we must assume they were underaged kids to brock,

(03:16):
or at least there's a good chance they were to brock.
One of these girls Epstein described as my little Susie
or Sue in emails he's sent during the spring of
twenty twelve. Youw, I don't think we have a great
idea of who this was yet. I haven't figured. At
least my clumsy searching around did not figure out who
Sue was, and given that she's probably a victim, I

(03:38):
don't know that we need to look too hard into this,
but she grew very close to Brock Pierce, or at
least that's the way Epstein and Brock's emails portray it.
And Epstein asked regularly after Brock's relationship with Sue with
a kind of interest that makes me think that because
he connected them, maybe Epstein saw Sue as his in

(04:00):
to Brock, who he considered a valuable contact. Right, Maybe
it was a situation where Epstein quote unquote discovered this girl,
however old she actually is, sends her to Brock, They
become close, and Epstein is curious about this relationship because
it's his leverage basically, right. Pierce, though, seems to have
valued Epstein as well. On May first of twenty twelve,

(04:23):
he messaged Jeffrey saying, I know a girl in New York.
You may like, how should I introduce you? And then
at Jeffrey's like, basically, like, you know, you can send
me her Facebook or whatever, and so he sends her.
He gives her a name and asks like, hey, can
you check her out on Facebook? And Jeffrey just replies, cute,

(04:45):
so great. You know, like this just gives you kind
of an insight into how things worked, right, this is
brock Is. It seems graduated from being the kind of
person that Jeffrey just supplies with girls to being the
kind of person who is connecting Jeffrey to girl. Yeah, right,
which is an evolution of their relationship. Again, I don't
know how old this person is, but he does use

(05:09):
the word girl, so it's not legally he's questionable to wonder.

Speaker 4 (05:14):
Right. It's also like this thing where it's so like
because you start to also kind of get the sense that,
I mean, on some level, they knew what they were doing.

Speaker 2 (05:23):
Was wrong, but it doesn't feel like.

Speaker 4 (05:24):
It was illegal. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:26):
Yeah, I don't think the knew it was wrong in
im morals. They certainly don't believe it, but they know
that if people find out, they could get in trouble.

Speaker 4 (05:34):
Yeah about a lot of what they're doing, right, Yeah,
they don't seem to consider what they're doing to be wrong.

Speaker 2 (05:40):
No, they think they treat sex trafficking of underage girls
the way I think normal people treat like doing drugs, right,
where like it's illegal. You want to be a little
careful about it because you could get in trouble if
you get caught. But you're not judging your friend because
they do acid once a year or take mushrooms occasionally, right, right,

(06:04):
That's very much how they treat it, right, right. So
a month after this email chain where Brock sends Epstein
this girl's Facebook page, Pierce told Epstein that he was
taking a trip to Moscow, Kiev and Odessa because that
was an itinerary you could have back in twenty twelve.
Epstein asked him to take photos and find me a present,

(06:26):
and Pierce replied, will do, and then a smiley face,
and those photos are photos of girls, and the present
is girls.

Speaker 4 (06:36):
Right.

Speaker 2 (06:37):
Several days later, Pierce replied with more than a dozen
images of what we have to I believe we're naked
young women, or at least scantily clad young women. It's
a little clear to me because of how you know
the email is preserved. But he sends these photos with
the sentence the Ukraine is now my favorite country. Smiley face,
just Ukraine. But I don't know. I feel like when

(06:57):
you're the sex trafficking is I shouldn't be a pedant
about language here, No, and again, we don't know that
this is sex trafficking. I don't know what age these
these people are. You know, it's just gross. Brock is
both being provided by Epstein and also providing too at
this point, right, which gives you an idea of how

(07:18):
a lot of his relationships ships function. This is we're
talking about him and Pierce, but he had a number
of famous dudes who he had similar relationships with where
it presumably starts with him feeding them women, but they
also you know, push people his way, right, That's how
a lot of this certainly funk. Like this like low
rent frat house shit where you're like, right, right, exactly,

(07:38):
it's and they talk about it that way, right. They
don't talk about it like we're doing a secret criminal enterprise.
They talk about it like dudes talking about a hot
chick at college, except for the chick is thirty years
younger than them, right, Yeah, and they met her fucking
because Gilan Maxwell Spider outside of a high school or something.
I don't know. Yeah, it's gross. Also in twenty twelve,

(08:02):
Epstein continued to gather influence in the world of video games.
He started emailing regularly with Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotik.
Actually it may have been earlier. In this, we don't
know exactly how long he and Bobby were in regular contact.
The email show at least as far back as November
of twenty twelve, which is in that month Kotik visited
New York, but they had been friends previously, right. We

(08:25):
know the two planned to meet in person during that
November twenty twelve trip, and we know that Epstein even
tempted Kotek to come a day earlier by saying, Hey,
if you show up early, you can hang out with
Woody Allen. Ew oh boy is well, yeah, I'm on board.
You don't want to hang with Woody Allen.

Speaker 4 (08:42):
I mean, look, at least these guys morality is consistent. Yeah,
I did.

Speaker 2 (08:48):
The first time I saw Woody in one of these,
I had a moment of free kunters like, oh god,
is it Woody Harrelson. That would really bum me out?
And it's like, oh, no, exists, It's gotta be Woody Allen, right, yeah,
and it is. It is Woody Allen. It's what's interesting
to me is that Epstein brings up Woody Allen other times, right,
like when he's talking with Elon Musk and he's trying
to convince Elon Musk to hang out one Christmas. He

(09:11):
also brings out like Woody Allen's gonna be there. It
could be you and me and Woody Allen partying together.
I mean, he seems to think this is like a
big get for a lot, like this is maybe if
I sweeten the pot with Woody Allen, this rich, famous
guy will want to hang out with me.

Speaker 4 (09:25):
I mean, to be fair, Manhattan is basically what these
guys are trying to aspire to like at all times.

Speaker 2 (09:32):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Manhattan or fucking I mean, we don't
need to talk about Woody Allen movies. So that said Kotech,
and again we can we know they were emailing regularly
in twenty twelve. Kotech is connected to Epstein for quite
a while longer than that. We have a two thousand
and four April of two thousand and four email between

(09:52):
him and Gilan Maxwell where he's talking about Gillen's sexy body.
So they the two of them seem to have had
an affair of some sort, which at least Gillen's an adult.
So I don't know, Bobby, you get the maybe had
sex with an adult while hanging out with Jeffrey Epstein Award,
which is not much of an award, Bobby Kotick not

(10:13):
much of an award. The most significant aspect of Kotek
and Epstein's friendship was that Jeffrey used as an influence
over Bobby to push for more micro transactions in video games.
He's really trying to convince Bobby this is the future
of gaming, right. Bobby's already convinced of this, but Epstein's
further piling on right and is trying to encourage some

(10:34):
specific ways that this should develop. I don't mean to
say that like Epstein introduced the idea to Bobby Kotick.
He's the kind of soulless school who would always have
loved this thing and was pushing for it previously, but
Epstein is trying to shift him in specific directions as
relates to this stuff. On May second of twenty thirteen,
Kotik asked Epstein for advice ahead of a meeting with
New York City Department of Education Chancellor Joel Klein. Specifically,

(10:57):
he asked if Epstein knew of any Edu tan games
that we're doing it right, and what I assume was
happening here is that as CEO of Activision Blizzard, he's
meeting with the Department of New York City Education Chancellor
to see if, like, can we make a deal about
like providing educational games to the school system New York. Right, Like,
that's probably the reason for this. And again, because I
can't say directly, here is how Epstein influenced how Kotik

(11:20):
felt about micro transactions. Here's what he introduced the industry.
I don't have a clear thing for that, but what
I can say is Bobby Kotik valued Epstein's opinions enough
that he asks him for advice ahead of a meeting
like this, and he listens when Epstein tells him what
he thinks should be happening with this stuff, which suggests
Epstein is influencing the development of micro transactions in gaming

(11:42):
to some level, right, and not the creed, not the
main but he's one of the dominoes there.

Speaker 1 (11:47):
Right, Yeah, I'm with Kotik. This is like if we're
in twenty thirteen. He got divorced in twenty twelve, this
before he starts publicly dating Cheryl Sandberg.

Speaker 4 (11:58):
Yes it is, but this is this is.

Speaker 1 (12:00):
Just like an interesting timeline for this.

Speaker 2 (12:02):
From Gillen Maxwell to Sharon Sandberg. What a what a
fascinating romantic life this man's had.

Speaker 1 (12:10):
Disturbing weird little guy, was it?

Speaker 4 (12:13):
Listen, did you repost on Blue Sky's something about like,
all right, maybe you're going to get to this about
like one of the one of the reasons is to
like indoctrinate kids into like.

Speaker 2 (12:22):
Yes, yes, we're talking about all that right now. So
Kochik emails and being like, do you have any suggestions
for this meeting with this guy from you know, the
Department of Education, New York, and Epstein says you should
play Medal of Honor or Call of Duty and then
quote you will learn war history, right, basically saying video
games are already great at teaching kids about war, which
they're not.

Speaker 4 (12:40):
I don't think people learn a.

Speaker 2 (12:42):
Lot you're at war history from goll of Duty or
Medal of Honor some stuff.

Speaker 4 (12:46):
Sure well, they certainly learned that their two equal sides
are Allies and the gervis. It's morally fine to be
on either, to play either, right now.

Speaker 2 (13:00):
What's interesting to me about this is that Epstein's initial response, like,
just played either these video games and you can learn
war history. Games are great at teaching kids stuff. That's
kind of like the throwaway response you expect from Epstein.
But what follows is really unique because after that initial line,
he writes out like a five paragraph essay laying out
his thoughts on this subject. And this is not a

(13:22):
normal response for Jeffrey. The biggest difference from his normal
correspondence is that nearly every word in this essay is
spelled properly and the grammar is mostly correct. It's very weird,
Like you see dozens hundreds of emails of him where
he's just like spelling like a dipshit. And then you
see this like almost a page of writing that's like
well formatted and like, I don't know if someone else

(13:43):
wrote it for him.

Speaker 4 (13:44):
Right, he like copy pasted from a white paper.

Speaker 2 (13:47):
Yes, he clearly had a document, but it sounds like idiosyncratic,
like it's in his voice. If he had someone else
type it up, I don't know. It's weird. And in
this essay, Epstein argues that video games quote already great
at teaching, and then expresses something almost identical to how
pro AI people argue chatbots are going to revolutionize education fundamentally.

(14:08):
The thing that works is a one to one student
teacher ratio. Even if you have a shitty teacher or tutor,
you will learn a lot because that person gets to
know you and challenges you at your level. That doesn't scale,
but computers do. So we have to use computers to
replace teachers or at least augment them. Thank you, Jeffrey,
thanks for seeding that into society.

Speaker 5 (14:28):
No, no, it's interesting to see like this is, you know,
a deca years later going to be a decade or
so later, going to be what like all the AI
bros Are saying about education, And it's interesting to see
Jeffrey Land of the same spot in like twenty twelve.

Speaker 2 (14:43):
But also because.

Speaker 4 (14:43):
That's largely just the right wing thing is like who cares?

Speaker 2 (14:47):
Got to get rid of teachers?

Speaker 4 (14:49):
Yeah, yeah, get rid of teachers. Give your people the dumbest,
most uninformative thing. It's fright.

Speaker 2 (14:55):
And he's not talking about this, but you have to
think again, Epstein's angry. He's been judged by you know,
what he believes is a prudish society for something that
he shouldn't be punished for. He's angry, and he probably
sees to a degree the education system and the things
it's taught women as being responsible for his woes. So
I suspect there's more than a little. Well we can

(15:17):
if we do this, then we have control of the
computers that are teaching kids and thus the things that
they learn.

Speaker 4 (15:22):
Right, But do you think it's that in affair, because
that's the thing that I do is like, well, yeah,
but it's or I guess what I mean is like
that not nefarious, but not because they're so dumb and
not details oriented otherwise that I like have trouble squaring
like this grand vision and actually pulling it off. I

(15:44):
guess yeah.

Speaker 2 (15:46):
It's less of a grand because you know, Epstein isn't
the guy making this stuff. He's just kind of talking
to people who will be owning the companies that own
it about what he how he wants to see it
used right, right, And I don't think Epstein's not engaged
in a cohesive plot with a bunch of other rich
guys to destroy education. I think he just sees this

(16:06):
as beneficial and a better way to do society right.
And I think part of why he sees it is that,
like he doesn't like or respect a lot of people
in this yeah, who are doing this job, right.

Speaker 4 (16:18):
And you know what, and I guess like the vision
versus the execution is what, right, That's what ice is.
Ice is the vision and the execution of that vision,
which is Gooddy.

Speaker 2 (16:27):
And he's he's just kind of got and he's talking
with his other rich friend because he's he's and he's
an idea guy. Right, That's Epstein's whole brand. So he
goes on in this essay to say that the real
issue is that today's with educational games is that today's
video games just don't try to teach stuff we care about.
And it's unclear who we is. I think he's referring
to we as in like people like you and me, Bobby,

(16:50):
like smart, rich guys care about quote. Right. The best
scheme I've come up with so far is to use
the X Prize or something like it to co opt
the existing video game industry. You want to skip convincing
educators and parents about this stuff and just go straight
for the kids. Ew I mean I can get him

(17:11):
to be fair.

Speaker 4 (17:12):
Yeah, not not that this is a good use, but
the probably one of the least sinister uses of go
straight for the kids. Jeffrey Epstein has ever.

Speaker 2 (17:20):
Yes, this is yeah, right, like grading on a curve
that continue because as soon as he says, you want
to skip convincing parents and teach it, just go straight
for the kids by making a game that gets them addicted.
Then Epstein provides his own suggestion for like what an
educational game might look like, and he he suggests a
game that would teach a player how to read and

(17:42):
pronounce Japanese kanji. Quote. Imagine you are looking at a
door in a video game. It has some squiggly symbols
printed on it. Little munchkins walk up to that door
and say conichiwa. The door opens, and they are greeted
by a hot princess with big tits and a thong.
The door closes in your face. You are going to
fucking learned to read and pronounce kanji.

Speaker 4 (18:02):
That's why I'm like, they're so dumb. I just can't
believe we're ruled by these boks.

Speaker 2 (18:10):
There's the there's the the line between. I'm not saying
Jeffrey Epstein controlled all of this as the puppet master,
but he had a lot of ideas that he helped
to seed in powerful people who then took those ideas further.
And also the way he thinks about all This shows
you how the ruling class thought about and thinks about
all this stuff and was talking about it, and he
influenced that, right. I mean to me, it's just.

Speaker 4 (18:31):
Like all these unfuckable dweves finally like forced their way
into some sex through violence and coercion. Yeah, now they're
money pressed the man.

Speaker 2 (18:40):
Yeah, well and the fucking the whole you see, just
like the the fact that women don't really matter to
him is made very evident, just in the fact that
he's like, yeah, hot princess, big tits in a thong,
that'll teach him how to read kanji, and yeah, the
little girls kind of being enticed. I have issues believing
this would work on boys, But like, are they gonna

(19:02):
want the big titted, hot princess Jeffrey in this game
for schools that you want to put in school. Epstein
then concludes edutainment is for pussies because once kids catch
on you are trying to teach them something, they shut down.
We have to keep the boobs and guns in profit.

(19:22):
You see how much money video games are making these days.
Fuck educational reform, we need educational subversion. And what he's
saying here is that like this stuff. You don't want
to make educate. You want to make games that get
kids addicted and you teach them and push messages through
the games that they're playing while also profiting off of them.
And the way to do that is make games that

(19:42):
they are addicted to playing. They are compulsively like attractive
to them. Right, your goal is to subvert the educational system.
You're almost saying, we want these games to teach kids
a separate set of things that they're learning in school
and society.

Speaker 4 (19:58):
Right.

Speaker 2 (19:58):
You want to think about, like how gaming culture has
been used by guys like Bannon who are attached to Epstein.
You can see some really direct through lines here, right. Yeah, Now,
after Epstein goes on this very weird rant, Bobby Kotik
doesn't respond, are you fucking crazy? And Steady responds, X
prize is a good idea, but key is real world rewards,

(20:19):
learn to read, earn cell phone minutes, iPhone credits, virtual
items and games. Eh, that's a funny email in its
own right. Future ist Pablos Holman, who's looped into Epstein,
loops Poblos into this conversation, and Pablos responds with just
a dig at Bobby Kotek, saying I'm all for indoctrinating
kids into an economy you gotta love who His example

(20:41):
for real world rewards is virtual items and games, which is,
I mean, Pablos, you're a You're tied to Jeffrey Epstein
forever and now. So that's shameful, but that is a
pretty good dig.

Speaker 4 (20:51):
I mean, like every time you don't respond only with
what the fuck are you guys talking about? With shit?

Speaker 2 (21:01):
Dipshit. Yeah, and Holman is obviously correct that Kotik is
a visionless slug of a man who ruined at least
one great company. These amails were sent just a few
weeks after the launch of Call of Duty Black Ops two,
the first Call of Duty game to feature micro transactions.
Per an article in The Gamer by James Lucas, Call
of Duty Ghosts, which launched later that year, went even

(21:22):
further with paid special characters, voiceover packs, skins, camo, and
even weapons. It's not hard to draw line between these
conversations with Epstein and industry figures and the sudden boom
and micro transactions that occurred around the same time period,
but what's most concerning is the apparent interest to normalize
aggressive monetization strategies towards younger audiences, as suggested in remarks
made by Epstein's associates and the DOJ documents. And Epstein again,

(21:46):
he doesn't invent the idea of micro transactions in children's games.
Bobby's thinking about this before Epstein starts talking about it,
but Epstein is influencing his thoughts on it. And Epstein
is talking a lot about how we need to normalize
using games to deliver propaganda to kids by addicting them.
Right that, like the fact that the game is addictive
and has the guns and the tits and you know,

(22:08):
makes money is part of like what keeps the kid
paying attention, what allows you to influence them with the
content and the game. And this is a big part
of the modern micro transaction industry. Right, Like what we
ultimately landed on is fuck teaching kids anything. Just get
them hooked, like get them get them playing games where
they're going to be sending money regularly and gambling for

(22:30):
stuff like loot boxes.

Speaker 4 (22:31):
Right. And it's it's also like that most of these
are built on whales, Like it doesn't broadly the kids.
It's like the unfortunate I don't know what is it
like four or five percent somewhere in there who are
like paying for everything else and more.

Speaker 2 (22:48):
No, but it is I mean the fact that these
are present in the games. Even though most of the
money isn't coming from randomly, it still affects them right.
Researchers from the Australian Consumer Policy Research Center the CPRC
and Monash University in twenty sixteen identified twenty dark patterns
of monetization in modern games, the worst of which were
gambling like features such as paid loot boxes like the

(23:09):
ones Bobby Kotik helped push at Activision Blizzard. Per an
investigation by ABC Australia, quote, the design features were not
in all games, but ninety five percent of adult players
surveyed had come across them at eighty three percent had
suffered negative consequences. So this is a harmful industry and
it's one that you know Jeffrey is a cheerleader for. Again,

(23:30):
he's not the founder of it, but he's one of
the He's one of the dominoes here. Today, the global
online micro transaction market is more than worth more than
seventy five billion dollars a year, As Epstein said, we
have to keep the boobs and guns in profit.

Speaker 5 (23:44):
Right.

Speaker 2 (23:44):
An article into BBC by Catherine Latham makes the end
result of all this very clear. Gaming companies use behavioral
psychology to manipulate users into spending, says professor Sarah Mills,
and the link between gaming and gambling is becoming increasingly blurred,
she explains. Ms Mills is a profess sort of human
geography at Loughborough University, where research found gambling techniques make
gamers play for longer and spend more money and drive

(24:06):
repeat buying. And we could go on from here to
discuss the outrageous proliferation of gambling apps for young people
and how companies like Activision Blizzard paved the way for
shit like Caushi.

Speaker 4 (24:16):
Right.

Speaker 2 (24:17):
And Epstein is a piece of that story. Right, But
that's also getting us all away from the Epstein of it,
because this is stuff that's largely occurred since the end
of his life.

Speaker 4 (24:27):
Right.

Speaker 2 (24:28):
I think we've done enough to establish how harmful this
trend is, and that Jeffrey was a prominent voice urging
developers to go down this road and urging developers at
a high level talking to the C suites.

Speaker 4 (24:38):
Right.

Speaker 2 (24:39):
I should also note that Epstein and Kote's friendship went
deeper than just work related conversations. These aren't just guys
who are talking shop. Per Kotaku article by Ethan Gatsch,
Emails between the two were allegedly exchanged multiple times in
twenty thirteen, as well. A February twenty fourth, twenty thirteen
emails stated that Epstein was in La planning a visit

(24:59):
to SpaceX that week and was trying to link up
with Kotik while in town. Thanks but rather see you,
Epstein wrote in one email taking girls after to bell Air.
Ko Tik at one point allegedly wrote back, come with
your friends to buy house Beverly Hills ten minutes from
bel Air.

Speaker 4 (25:14):
Great. Also, that's an insane thing to put in an email.

Speaker 2 (25:18):
Down it's crazy. Got to hang out with Elon Musket
SpaceX before taking my girls to the CEO of Activision
Blizzard's house.

Speaker 4 (25:28):
And again notably invited.

Speaker 2 (25:32):
Right Elon's Oh, I mean you don't want him at
at the good parties? You know you don't want You
don't want him and Bobby Kotik in a room at
the same time. That's just too much cool. You know
who else is cool?

Speaker 5 (25:44):
Me?

Speaker 2 (25:46):
Some would say, sure, of course, Sophie, Yes, Andrew T Sure,
Andrew T. Okay, you know, and also the sponsors of
this podcast.

Speaker 1 (25:54):
Yeah, Evans, Robert.

Speaker 2 (26:03):
And we're back. You know, we're talking Jepstein, Jeffrey Epstein.
So Epstein's friendship with Brock Pierce continued along a similar
tenor to his friendship with Bobby Kotick. In May of
that year, Pierce told Epstein that he had plans to
purchase what was at the time the largest bitcoin exchange
on Earth, Mount Gox. Now this is a side story

(26:28):
from a larger, much funnier story, because mount gox was
for years the place to go if you were new
to crypto and looking to get into it. Right, if
you wanted to get started with bitcoin or whatever, mount
gox is probably where you were starting. And mount gox
got its name from its original purpose, which was it
was a place to sell and trade magic the gathering cards.

(26:48):
Mount gox stands for Magic the Gathering online exchange. Right,
they started going by mount gox when the slightly more
sensible libertarian crypto enthusiasts pointed out that like, hey, regular
people don't want to or their life savings at a
business run by people who sell magic cards for a living. Right, Like,
that's not really like a bank. It doesn't give a bank.

Speaker 4 (27:10):
I could have been called the chaos Orb. So I
guess it could have been called.

Speaker 2 (27:14):
The chaos Orb. Yeah, I mean we're further along on
our decline now. Per an article on the website protest
dot com by caspanc quote Epstein, who was unfamiliar with
the exchange, asked if it had been seized by the
US government. It hadn't. The purchase had never occurred, and
in April of twenty fourteen, it was revealed that mount
gox had lost the majority of its users' money. All

(27:35):
of the money in mount Gox gets stolen, right, the
whole bank gets stolen because again the magic the gathering
online exchange is a bad place to keep your savings.

Speaker 4 (27:45):
Yeah, it's fine though not regulated. No FDI not at
all regulated.

Speaker 2 (27:49):
Baby, we don't need an FDN. See, we don't need that.
That's big government. Well we'll talk about why that's fundy.
But what's really what's funny immediately here is that even
after the whole bank bank gets stolen, Pierce doesn't give
up acquiring mount Gox. He tries after it collapses to
buy it, and he starts his initiative called Gox Rising,
which like, why are you tied to the magic the

(28:11):
gathering bank, that god that lost everything? Like why are
you invested in continuing that journey?

Speaker 4 (28:18):
Brock?

Speaker 2 (28:20):
Is it just the name Mount Gox is so appealing
to you? I don't get it.

Speaker 4 (28:24):
I mean, look, brand recognition, you know, the.

Speaker 2 (28:29):
Brand recognition is that place that lost everyone's money?

Speaker 4 (28:32):
But yeah, but not anymore. Yeah, we couldn't possibly lose
it twice.

Speaker 2 (28:36):
Yeah, it happened twice. That's crazy, So you should The
fact that Pierce still thinks this is a good idea
should tell you something about Pierce, And the fact that
Epstein continues to treat this kid as genius should let
you know that Jeffrey Epstein was not nearly as intelligent
as he gets credited with being. Sometimes the same month
Brock started trying to buy Mount Gox, Epstein reaches out

(28:57):
to his friend Bill Gross, who is the co founder
of a major investment management company Pimco, about an exciting
new crypto project that Brock was working on. And this
is the project that he gets involved with really after
Mount Gox, and it's called Tether Have you ever heard
of the cryptocurrency Tether.

Speaker 4 (29:15):
Yes, I think I have some. I don't remember why.

Speaker 2 (29:19):
It's prominent people know about it. And the idea behind tether.
You brought up the FDIC earlier that like, oh, the
whole bank got stolen. Maybe that's a good idea that
the regular financial system ad Tether is Brock. I mean,
Brock is one of the guys behind tether. Tether is
kind of the attempt to add sort of an FDIC
type deal to crypto. It doesn't work the way the

(29:40):
FDIC does, but the idea is it's a way to
make cryptocurrency less dangerous and volatile. Right, Tether is what's
supposed to be a stable coin. That's the idea.

Speaker 4 (29:51):
I say, I think the only reason I have any
cryptocurrency is to play quasi legal international digital poker.

Speaker 2 (29:58):
Of course, Andrew, So the idea behind Tether is that
it's what's called a stable coin. Normal crypto is way
too volatile to be a good store of value, right,
Like you don't want to store your savings something could
be worth zero tomorrow.

Speaker 4 (30:12):
Right.

Speaker 2 (30:14):
Tether was ostensibly pegged to the US dollar, and so
basically the idea is that like it's backed up by
real money, right, so we can't it can't become worth nothing,
And as a result, tether is today the most successful
and the largest stable coin. But the fact that what
it's supposed to be and what it actually is are
two different things. Because the idea is that tether is

(30:37):
pegged to the dollar, but that's not even even on
its face real, because tether is meant to actually be
fifty percent backed by cash or cash equivalents. Right now.
Obviously banks don't have as much cash on hand as
they have people with money invested in the bank or
money in the bank, right, and that's why we have
the FDIC. Right, if your bank goes bust, the FDIC

(31:01):
will reimburse at least for no, I think it's up
to a quarter a million dollars in an account or
something like that, but they'll reimburse your losses.

Speaker 4 (31:06):
Right.

Speaker 2 (31:07):
The government is saying, if the bank fucks up, you're
not screwed as a regular person because there's an FDIC
backed bank. Tether doesn't really work that way, but they're
kind of trying to make people think that it works
that way. Right that like no, no, no, like this
is bank banks don't have fifty percent of their assets
backed by cash er equivalents. Right, So Tether's actually more
realistic than a bank, right. And the reality is there

(31:29):
have been like pseudo bank runs on Tether, and at
times people behind Tether have just refused to redeem the
cash value of their cryptocurrency because that's what they could do,
that to stop a bank run, right, which is also
something they get to do because they're not a bank. Right.
It's you're just throwing money to some fucking freaks who
are gonna do what they want with it.

Speaker 4 (31:49):
Yeah, some racists are holding your money. Right.

Speaker 2 (31:53):
Tether would prove though, to be a very wise financial
bet for Brock. The company is profitable at this moment, right,
and it's made lot of money over the course of
its lifetime. I'm sure he did very well on this.

Speaker 4 (32:04):
Now.

Speaker 2 (32:04):
Brock is not the creator of the idea behind tether.
That would be a guy named J. R. Willett, but
he co founds the company and initially calls it real
Coin when it launches in July of twenty fourteen. In
twenty nineteen, tethers surpassed bitcoin and trading volume, and it
is currently tied to about half of all bitcoin sales,
even though The Wall Street Journal has reported on Tether
increasingly showing up in cases of money laundering and the

(32:24):
financing of terrorist groups. In twenty twenty one, the Commodity
Futures Trading Commission announced that Tether was not in fact
fully backed by real currency, which sparked a sell off.
The CFTC ordered Tether to pay forty one million dollars
for violations of the Commodity Exchange Act. Now I've left
into the future, passed the life span of Jeffrey, just
to make it clear. This was a shady business from

(32:46):
the beginning, right, This is never a good business.

Speaker 4 (32:50):
Like all this shit, yeah, of course.

Speaker 2 (32:52):
Yes, yeah, like all of this shit. So Epstein leans
into this fact right in his email to Gross because
he's trying to talk a finance guy into getting on
the crypto board.

Speaker 4 (33:05):
Here.

Speaker 2 (33:05):
Gross is the guy who works at PEMCO who's trying
to get to invest in the idea that becomes Tether,
and Epstein acknowledges in this email that there are issues
with cryptocurrency. The good is that bitcoin uses an algorithm
to limit supply, unlike the variable of gold or other commodities. However,
two main issues one the government doesn't like it. Money laundering,
money transmitting, aiding, and abetting all types of crimes too.

(33:28):
All transactions are arguably taxable and therefore extra tricky. The
Bitcoin guys came to see me early in the process
and made it clear they were all willing to go
to jail for their ideas. I'm not there is a
way to do it, but it turns the bitcoin model
on its head. Talk to you soon. This is argument
for tether, right. But what's interesting to me in that
is him saying the Bitcoin guys came to see me

(33:49):
early in the process and made it clear they were
all willing to go to jail with their ideas. We
know he's in touch with Gavin. We don't know who
else necessarily, I mean, we will talk later. There's other
guys that Bitcoin's attached to. But this is some more evidence,
at least that he wants other people to think he's
really maybe he's lying about this, right, But also we
know he was talking to Gavin, we know he's in
touch with a number of these guys, and we know

(34:11):
that they're talking ideologically about what this means to each other.
So I don't really think this is a lie. This
seems consistent with other things we have evidence of, right,
and it's further evidence that Jeffrey is an influential person
in this period of development for bitcoin and cryptocurrency as
a whole. Right now, obviously we don't. This doesn't mean

(34:34):
that he was like making big final decisions on bitcoin,
but it means that he's he's got some influence with
the people doing it right, and that there's not no
reason for that. As we'll talk about in twenty fourteen,
Epstein helps brock Pierce in could deal with Noble Bank
to create a Puerto Rico based company that would act
as the real money bank for Tether, right like, this

(34:57):
is the actual bank that's going to provide the cash
that's supposed to he backs up this stable point. This
further establishes Epstein as a foundational figure in the history
of crypto because Tether, as I noted, is a very
significant cryptocurrency. And Epstein not only is he advising peers
and the beginning stages of Tether becoming a thing, but
he helps make a deal with the bank that acts
as like the the backing for Tether. He's important in

(35:22):
this right and this is the particularly the stage of
crypto development he's a part of. Is not the initial
stage where you have these guys like he talks about,
who are willing to go to jail for these weird
libertarian ideas they have. Right, we don't have to You
don't have to like or respect what they see to
be Like, oh, a lot of these people will, right. Yeah,

(35:42):
they really wanted to weaken the power of the state
in the Federal Reserve by decoupling currency from the government, right,
And that's they were willing to go to prison for it.
There are guys like that in the early history of crypto.
Epstein comes in and has his influence in the stage
of crypto in which it starts slowly trying to replicate
the features of the real financial system in order to

(36:03):
achieve widespread adoption. Right, Tether is a piece of this.
It's an acknowledgement that like, this is way too volatile,
too many people are losing money. We need something that
we can at least market as a safe cryptocurrency that's
backed up by cash.

Speaker 4 (36:16):
Right.

Speaker 2 (36:17):
So that's what Epstein's involvement in cryptos during the period
in which it's starting to take on, it's at least
starting to dress up in the drag of a real financial.

Speaker 4 (36:26):
System trappings of actual money, right, exactly, exactly, digital lottery
ticket right.

Speaker 2 (36:33):
Right, as opposed to the thing my friends used to
buy drugs in two thousand and nine with Eagle right.
And again, part of the point the idea behind tether
is we want to make rich people feel comfortable to
put their money into crypto, right, so other crypto millionaires
can cash out using the real money they put in.
So brock piercingly like, that's that's why you want the
real money, right, That's why Teather's valuable.

Speaker 4 (36:55):
Pyramid scheme, the puremid needs to be at the base.

Speaker 2 (36:59):
This is safe. Put your money in, then we cash
out our holdings to get real money.

Speaker 4 (37:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (37:06):
In twenty fourteen, Epstein put three million dollars of his
own money into an investment in a new bitcoin trading exchange, Coinbase,
founded by the Stevens brothers. Bradford Bart Caspiance writes, perhaps
most embarrassing about the Epstein Coinbase investment is that they
knew who had put the money in there to purchase shares.
As Pierce rushed to get the deal closed, he shared

(37:28):
one awkward, hurried email with Epstein. I need permission to
let the founder know who you are.

Speaker 4 (37:34):
Right.

Speaker 2 (37:35):
So Epstein is putting this money into fund Coinbase, which
is like Pierce is helping to broker this deal to
provide the basic funding to get Coinbase off the ground.
And Pierces as he's communicating with the people he's working
with a Coinbase realizes Epstein is a convicted sex criminal.

(37:55):
And if I get these people to invest in a
company that he's a major investor in and I don't
let them know, that could be fraud.

Speaker 5 (38:02):
Right.

Speaker 2 (38:03):
You can't convince them to partner with you in a
major venture and not let them know that one of
the people funding the company is a convicted pedophile. It's
kind of important, right, And Epstein gives his permission, So
Brock lets the Coinbase people know that Jeffrey Epstein, who
by this point it's been years since his conviction for
child sex trafficking, is one of the funders. And the

(38:24):
Coinbase people are like, yeah, that's fine with us, right,
cool stuff. And Coinbase is the new mount Gox, that's
the big exchange people get into now when they're starting
in crypto, right, yeah, yeah, yeah stuff.

Speaker 4 (38:39):
There do they still have Super Bowl ads? I guess
we'll find out.

Speaker 2 (38:43):
I don't think they're doing Super Bowl that ads anymore,
but they're still around something. Yeah yeah, that Matt Damon
run money ran out though. But you know who does
have the money to hire Matt Damon. Not the sponsors
of this show. Maybe us. If you buy enough of
the products that advertise on our show, Sophie and I

(39:04):
might get the money to bring Matt Damon onto the show.
And I know that's what all of our listeners have
been clamoring for all you dame heads out there.

Speaker 4 (39:12):
Oh I'm really mad.

Speaker 1 (39:14):
I really just want to take this as an excuse
to talking about ben Affleck back tattoo again.

Speaker 2 (39:20):
I'll always talk about ben afflex back tattoo.

Speaker 1 (39:22):
I know it's great.

Speaker 2 (39:24):
Let's all think about that while these ads run. We're
back and woay, I sure love ben afflex back tattoo
of Phoenix.

Speaker 1 (39:38):
Ben af Back well done. Yeah yeah, that was relaxing
for me, to be honest.

Speaker 2 (39:45):
In June of two thousand and four, This part's not
going to be relaxing, Sophie, because in June of twenty fourteen,
Jeffrey Epstein asked Brock Pierce if he knew the Winklevoss twins.
Of course, those weird looking fuckers show up this I
know now, the winkle Vi, if you're not familiar, were
the guys who allegedly Mark Zuckerberg maybe stole the Facebook

(40:08):
idea from and then they get hardcore into crypto after
suing Mark Zuckerberg, I think several times. So they get
really into crypto, and like every celebrity who gets really
into crypto, they're totally not a scam crypto product eventually
gets sued by the SEC right now. Thankfully, the winkle

(40:29):
v were intelligent enough to donate heavily to Donald Trump's
reelection campaign, and per tech Crunch, quote also backed his
family's business ventures, which means his family's crypto grifts. So
on January twenty fourth, twenty twenty six, just a few
days before I started work on these episodes, the SEC
dropped their lawsuit against Gemini, the crypto exchange founded by
the Winklevoss twins.

Speaker 4 (40:50):
Right cool, So I love that.

Speaker 2 (40:52):
Yeah, So Pierce replies that he does know the Winklevoss twins,
because of course he does, and Epstein says, okay, I'm
gonna send Setlana to them to get a download of
the company that they're planning to launch. Right to get
a look at the business they're starting, Anna great, great question.
Sophie as Piance notes this was likely Svetlana Positiva, who

(41:13):
is a Russian citizen who was the daughter of a
former colonel in the Red Army. Her family lives in
an apartment building initially constructed for NKVD staffers, and per
the News England Herald, attended a Moscow university, once described
as an incubator for the KGB. She joined a modeling
agency as a young woman, one run by John Luke Brunell,
who has been alleged to have recruited girls and women

(41:36):
for Epstein.

Speaker 4 (41:37):
Right.

Speaker 2 (41:37):
Brunell is one of the people who is funneling young
models towards Jeffrey Epstein. Svetlana claims that she was just
a model interested in charitable endeavors and Epstein had a
lot of connections in that world and so they became friends.
Since Fetlana is alleged to have spent a lot of
time with Prince Andrew, which he denies, and Epstein clearly
connected her to other influential people, a lot of people
suspect that she was a Russian agent working as a

(42:00):
part of that government's influence operation to utilize Epstein as
a clandestine source. And this may have been true. There
are a number of connections to Epstein and Russian intelligence. Yeah,
and this this episode isn't primarily about that stuff, but
this may be one more example of it. We really
don't know, Like like I don't know, Maybeana was but
maybe maybe yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (42:22):
But also it is like kind of increasingly clear that
like no matter what like a foreign government might want
to do to us, it's pretty clear like our most
powerful citizens were willing to do it anyway. So it's
sort of just like like do you think alleged Wendy
Dang's behavior. She wakes up and he's like, they already
did everything I was ordered to make them do well.

Speaker 2 (42:45):
And that's the part of the thing is that like this,
the most effective shit that the Russian government did using
its influence operations worked because of how fucked up the
US is. Right, they were they were like in pushing
and kind of like fanning the flames of like vaccine
denial and COVID denial and all this stuff. They were
just standing on the shoulders of American giants who started

(43:08):
that process here, right, No, you could usually see.

Speaker 4 (43:11):
All of everyone at the whatever the the what is
whatever the KGB is now is just like it's this
is easy mode. This is destabilization on cheat codes because
they simply do it time and.

Speaker 2 (43:24):
You just find the levers like Epstein who have the
connections you can push people in and you know, yeah, yeah,
good stuff. Now. Another fun thing that's happening at the
time is that Brock's friends are being sued over the
massive number of sexual assaults that are alleged to have
occurred during the parties that they threw. Right, So during
this period of time, this is like twenty fourteen or so,

(43:47):
Brock emails Epstein asking if he knows a lawyer named
Jeff Herman, quote, he is suing four of my friends.
Any dirt you have could prove helpful. Epstein described Herman as.

Speaker 3 (43:58):
In writing yeah, yeah, yeah, a voice note at least
in an email, and Epstein responds, Yeah, Herman's a really
bad guy.

Speaker 2 (44:10):
He represented several of the women who were accusing me
of six christs.

Speaker 4 (44:14):
Yeah, he sounds like a bad guy. Cool stuff.

Speaker 2 (44:18):
Yeah, sounds like a bad guy, Jeff. So Brock and
Jeffrey's friendship grows closer and closer over this period of time,
and Epstein continues to expand his involvement into crypto separate
from Brock as well, he donates extensively to the MIT
Media Lab, which was run by a guy named Joi Edo.
Joichi Joi Edo was born in Kyoto, Japan, on June nineteenth,

(44:39):
nineteen sixty six. His family immigrated to Canada when he
was three, and then the United States, where they ultimately
settled in a suburb of Detroit. His father was a
research scientist and his mother was a secretary for an
early tech company that made photovoltaic products Ovonyx. He became
Timothy Leary's godson, which should tell you most of what
you need to know about the social and political dynamics

(45:00):
with which joy Eto was raised. The company founder huh yeah, yeah,
why old shit Right's child went to the company founder.
Stanford Ofchinsky kind of adopted Itto as a protege when
he was a little kid. He just sees this kid's
really into you know, technology and to code, into like
you know, engineering and stuff, and to the extent that

(45:22):
like he starts just kind of like talking with him
and helping him out and coaching him. He eventually hires
him to do actual work with actual scientists when Itto
is thirteen years old. Ofshinsky later claimed he was not
a child in the conventional sense, And the fact that
that's kind of the story for both brock Pierce and
joy Eto is kind of interesting to me that like,

(45:43):
these are both guys are going to be really tied
to Epstein in some very shady ways involving underage people allegedly,
and they're also both guys who don't have childhoods themselves. Interesting,
interesting dynamic, right the family maintained Eto's family maintained strong
connections to their Japanese and moved back to Japan when
he was fourteen. He returns to the US after he

(46:04):
graduates to get his computer science degree from Tufts University,
which is where he meets future eBay billionaire Pierre oh
midyar Ito drops out of two different colleges, ultimately because
he's frustrated with the stupidity of the higher education system.
Ito also becomes an influential part of the musical counterculture
in Japan. He runs nightclubs in Japan. He helps to

(46:25):
bring industrial music to the country, and he's also an
angel investor in Kickstarter, in Twitter, as well as a
shitload of other less well known ventures like photopedia.

Speaker 4 (46:34):
He wins, are the only cool person you've talked about
so far.

Speaker 2 (46:39):
Yeah, he's not gonna stay cool for long. He wins
a twenty eleven Lifetime Achievement Award from the Oxford Internet
Institute for his achievements advocating for digital freedom. He writes
a monthly column for Wired, and he is a visiting
professor at Harvard. He does a lot of shit, and
then on April twenty fifth of twenty fifteen, he sends
an email to Jeffreypp asking for money. Edo is in

(47:03):
a tight spot. So the Bitcoin Foundation, which is the
organization that is paying the salaries of three of the
five developers for bitcoin, had just been declared bankrupt by
one of its board members. Right, so suddenly three of
the five people who are actually developing and furthering Bitcoin's
evolution are no longer getting paid. And here's how Edo,

(47:26):
in his email describes their importance is He's sending this
to Epstein. The five core developers are like Linus Torvold's
of Linux. They decide what changes are made to the
core code, you know. Further informs Epstein that quote, many
organizations scramble to step into the vacuum created by the
Foundation and take control of the developers. He puts take

(47:46):
control in quotation marks. I don't know who he's quoting,
but I do know the fact that he puts emphasis
on this is extremely important because he's framing this as
whoever is paying these developers has control over these developers,
who themselves control the future of bitcoin. Ito continues, We
moved quickly talking to all of the various stakeholders, and
the three developers decided to join the Media Lab. This

(48:09):
is a big win for us. And he's sending this
to Jeffrey. He's talking about this big win because Jeffrey
made this big win possible because the money that the
Media Lab uses to pay these developers comes from the
Epstein Foundation. Ito asks Jeffrey for this money. Jeffrey sends
him the money, and this email just quoted from is
Itto celebrating after they basically hire these developers, buy these developers, right, yeah,

(48:36):
you know.

Speaker 4 (48:37):
By all the printing, the money printing, they buy like.

Speaker 2 (48:40):
Exactly, exactly yeah, or at least yeah, the guys the
keys to Fort Knox. Maybe yeah, well, or they buy
like the actual money printing machine and now they can
be turned to do whatever. And after kind of writing
everything that I've I've quoted from here, Itto emails Epstein
saying FYI used gift funds, that the money Epstein sent

(49:01):
him to underwrite this which allowed us to move quickly
and win this round.

Speaker 4 (49:06):
Thanks.

Speaker 2 (49:07):
And Epstein's response to this email is just Gavin is clever.
This is Gavin Andreson right. Again, very hard to say
how much contact he had with Epstein, but Epstein is
here responding to an email with Edo, who would have
been in contact with Gavin, basically saying Gavin came up

(49:27):
with the ideas to do that. That's kind of what
he's insinuating, right, And again it suggests that he and
Gavin are talking, that he and Gavin are strategizing about
the future of bitcoin. As he is definitely strategizing about
the future of bitcoin with joy Edo and providing the
money to pay for three of these five developers. That
is significant in the history of the development of bitcoin,

(49:50):
right yeah now. Patrick Riley a minor aspiring right wing
influencer who paid for a verified account on Twitter and
mostly seems to shill a cryptocurrency called XRP is going
to find I don't know if finally he's the first guy,
but he finds these documents in the Epstein files and
he's going to post about them, and that post is

(50:11):
going to cause some really interesting stuff to happen. Before
we get into the post he made about this revelation,
I want to give you a relevant example of the
previous kind of posts that Patrick L. Riley was making
on Twitter. Right, you just have an understanding of what
kind of man this is. Sophie'll have this up on
video form. This is from August tenth of twenty twenty five.

(50:32):
The unvaccinated are to people as XRP holders are to crypto.
Both are of the highest quality and endured a trial
that siphoned out the best of humanity. In fact, I
bet the XRP community has the highest ratio of non
vaxed in any crypto.

Speaker 4 (50:46):
What a cool guy.

Speaker 2 (50:47):
So that's the kind of thinker Patrick Riley? Yes, God,
So after the most recent Epstein disclosure, Patrick makes a
post and he attaches the email chain that I have
been quoting from earlier to this post, and then he
writes at the time this letter was written, there were
around twelve thousand commits to Bitcoin's code. Today there are

(51:08):
forty seven thousand, five hundred and eighty three commits to
Bitcoin's code. This means that seventy four point seven nine
percent of the Bitcoin core development code was committed after
Jeffrey Epstein took over the de facto senior management role
as benefactor. He may not have been Setoshi, but he
was absolutely running the executive direction of Bitcoin on behalf
of Masad. What are the odds that there are back
doors built into Bitcoin's code at this point? Porbably about

(51:31):
one hundred percent, he spells it, Probably horribly these brain geniuses.
So this sets off a wave of upset that verged
on nausea from many crypto true believers. For the online right,
the Epstein case is just about the most important thing
on earth. But Bitcoin is also hallowed. It's a sacred
tool for freeing money from the clutches of the state.

(51:52):
This post from crypto bitloord is a relevant example of
many such responses to to Patrick's I know, I know
seventy five percent of Bitcoin's code comes directly from Geoffrey
Epstein's investments. We've basically funded an elite pedophile ring since
twenty fifteen. I feel sick and like, yeah, you guys did,

(52:14):
Like yeah, like Rightley's wrong about a bunch. For one thing,
there's there's not evidence that the fucking massa that Epstein
was running bitcoin on behalf of messade. He was really
running bitcoin, but he was in a position to influence it.
I don't think there's not evidence that there's back doors
in bitcoin's code because you wouldn't need to. It's easy

(52:34):
to track bitcoin, Like what would the backdoor even be?

Speaker 4 (52:38):
Right? Also, you don't you like you were funding a
global pedophile ring by participating a bitcoin before Jeffrey Epstein
was involved. That's the only thing it's good for.

Speaker 2 (52:50):
Yeah, yeah, that's its primary purpose. So after these posts
go viral, Bitcoin friendly press organs have to leap to
defend their favorite coin, right so that they've got to
after fucking Patrick post this and people start freaking out
over like, oh my god, refunding the pedophile cabal. Jeffrey
Epstein directed seventy five percent a bit, which also isn't
really accurate, right, Yeah, it's just that seventy five percent

(53:14):
of it was written after this, These developers are acquired
by joy Edo's lab, which is and that acquisition is
fund anyway. Whatever, Here's how the Bitcoin Academy website tried
to smooth all this over the funded salaries for bitcoin
core developers like Vladimir Wanderland during a cast strapped period
twenty fifteen to twenty seventeen. But here's the kicker. Epstein's

(53:35):
money flowed through MIT systems directly to developers. As one
x user bluntly put it, funding a university lab does
not equal running bitcoin. And this is technically true. But
when you pay the salary of three out of five
people whose votes can determine the future of bitcoin, it's
not unreasonable to say you might kind of run bitcoin, right,

(53:55):
Like aso, it's not unreasonable to say you have influence
in it. I'm not even saying he ran it, but
he's in a position to influence it, right.

Speaker 4 (54:02):
And the technically true of it is like what a
what a like grasp of that straw, dude, Like that's sure,
I guess.

Speaker 2 (54:12):
Yeah, he wasn't literally guiding every step bitcoin took, but
he was in a position to guide the steps he
wanted to and to make you know, yeah, and again
The only counter argument here really is you're arguing that, like, well,
Jeffrey Epstein probably just spent half a million dollars to
get no benefit. He probably just sent that money out

(54:32):
because he didn't want any power or influence in bitcoin, right, Yeah,
that seems likely for Jeffrey Epstein.

Speaker 4 (54:38):
But also like like the way power works is like
simply by not allowing your competitor to exert influence, you
have exerted influence like her literally done true nothing right
and as long as someone else that he didn't like
wasn't doing something something.

Speaker 2 (54:55):
With it, doing a thing, that's doing a thing. Yeah. Yeah,
Now this half assed defense of bitcoin continues. Email show
Edo thanked Epstein for allowing us to move quickly and
hiring bitcoin talent. But let's be real, MIT's DCI was
one of many funders today, groups like Brink and the
Human Rights Foundation transparently support bitcoin development. Epstein's role a

(55:18):
shady donor, not a senior manager of bitcoin. And again
this is true and no one's surprise. Patrick Riley's tweet
was nonsense. Again, but Epstein is clearly influencing the development
of bitcoin in the mid odds. I don't see any
other way of describing this, or at least he has
influence on the men who decided how bitcoin would develop.

Speaker 1 (55:39):
Now.

Speaker 2 (55:39):
Bitcoin Academy notes that per the structure of the deal,
developers were unaware of the funding source, and maybe that's true.
Quick audience pull, How many listeners think Jeffrey Epstein would
give up a half million dollars if he didn't think
it would impact what the developers he was paying for
would do?

Speaker 1 (55:57):
Quick pull?

Speaker 2 (55:58):
Right, Like, do you think that they've never learned where
the money came from or who they had to keep happy?

Speaker 4 (56:04):
Or they wouldn't. But that's the thing. It's like, like
I think these people are like, oh, there wasn't like
a direct like meeting which just did it for He
just did it for nothing.

Speaker 2 (56:14):
Yeah, And it's like, no, he did it because he
wanted a benefit to make.

Speaker 4 (56:19):
Yeah, there's just ways to communicate what you want.

Speaker 2 (56:22):
I know there's a degree which this is less satisfying
because I can't say here's what he did specifically to
influence the development of crypto. I just know that he
put himself and spent a lot of money to be
in a position where he could influence the development of crypto,
which means he was doing fucking something right, and even
Bitcoin Academy couldn't entirely polish this turd. The file show
Epstein to cozy up to crypto figures. In twenty fourteen,

(56:45):
he reportedly invested in Blockstream via joy Itdo's fund, though
back clarifies Epstein had no direct or indirect ties to
the company. Emails reveal Epstein pitching digital currency ideas to
a Saudi advisor in twenty sixteen, but zero evidence exists
of him touching bitcoin code. His real skill name dropping
Satoshi's associates at parties, And this is true, his real

(57:07):
skill is name dropping famous people. But that skill has
value because people know Jeffrey can connect you to influential
and wealthy people and to funding, which is what allows
him to influence people, including the people who guided the
development of bitcoin. Yeah, it's just there's not a counter argument.

(57:27):
Jeffrey Epstein had the opportunity to significantly influence the development
of bitcoin and cryptocurrency as all right.

Speaker 4 (57:34):
So fart matters. These two episodes have been weirdly like
he would be an odious person genuinely without the sex traffic.

Speaker 2 (57:43):
Yeah, oh yeah, like if he was not a pedophile
he would still be a monster.

Speaker 3 (57:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:49):
Yeah, And that is kind of the surprising thing to
me because previously I'd been like, well, obviously he was
a bad guy because he was a sex trafficker. But
if he hadn't done any of the sex trafficking, I
would have assumed he was just another asshole finance bro. No. No,
he was unfortunately more influential than that.

Speaker 4 (58:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (58:05):
Alas anyway, that's uh, that's gonna do it for part
to it.

Speaker 4 (58:11):
Wow. I mean, as far as these go, this is
this has been weirdly less stomach churning than I thought
when you said we were going to be going through
the Epstein files. I will say it a weird way
because you.

Speaker 2 (58:23):
I mean, you're not. I'm trying to focus it on
what I think is an interesting journey, which is how
Epstein influences the development of micro transactions and video games,
of cryptocurrency, and of like the burgeoning far right, which
is more of what we're going to talk about in
the last two episodes. I think that's really compelling. Obviously,
the and we've done like four episodes on Nexteine where

(58:44):
we focus just on the sex crimes we are we do.
We've talked about a lot of alleged sex crimes in this,
like he and Brock talking about girls and talking about girls.

Speaker 4 (58:54):
But yeah, it's just not as much. You know, it's
just odd to me that there's so much other stuff.
I guess I just I don't know. I hadn't occurred
to me, really.

Speaker 2 (59:03):
I mean, I don't think it didn't to a lot
of people. He knew he was influential, but I wouldn't
have guessed a lot of this stuff was going on, right, Like, no,
it's not even surprising. It's just I wouldn't have It's
just weird for him to have had an influence here,
Like it makes sense, Like, oh, yeah, I get given
the guy he was, why he got into far right stuff,
why he was sharing all this racist ship that we'll

(59:23):
talk about in the next episodes, why he wanted to
get into bitcoin, all this stuff. It makes sense when
you say it. But I just would I didn't guess
it ahead of time, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I
think I'm not surprised, but I'm like, oh fuck, uh, yeah,
I didn't call that one.

Speaker 4 (59:37):
Yeah, it's just an interesting angle.

Speaker 1 (59:40):
Yeah, he's the Where's Waldo of evil villain.

Speaker 2 (59:43):
He's a where's the where's waldough of evil pedophiles?

Speaker 4 (59:46):
Kilroy?

Speaker 2 (59:47):
Yeah he's a Kilroy type dude. Well, no one knows
Kilroy was here. Was like an early meme, but we
don't really know, like why, like what it was about.

Speaker 4 (59:56):
Yeah, yeah, well well well.

Speaker 1 (01:00:02):
Well more next week for folks.

Speaker 2 (01:00:05):
Wow. Uh, Sophie, I do have to say, Uh, you've
been You've been caught by the subreddit why breaking. Sophie
is not a real person. Sophie is an advanced artificial
intelligence built to serve the needs of the pod. We
have this confirmed. It's in the White Papers proof Sophie
Ray Lichtermann is an anagram for both AI policeman Thresher
and America's hit Their phone is actually strong evidence. Sophie,

(01:00:29):
I don't know. I haven't, I haven't I have a
double checked. This could just be a lie. Probably is
a lie.

Speaker 4 (01:00:34):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:00:35):
I've done no work.

Speaker 4 (01:00:35):
That is my favorite part about conspiracy theorists in general
is the amount of time they think people doing evil
stuff spent anagramming.

Speaker 2 (01:00:45):
The amount of importance anagrams have to the global pedophile
ely is really funny.

Speaker 4 (01:00:50):
Like, how do we see the actual correspondence of the
global pedophil. They can't spell.

Speaker 2 (01:00:55):
They can't fucking spell these words.

Speaker 4 (01:00:57):
How are they gonna do it? Anagram?

Speaker 1 (01:00:59):
Ok?

Speaker 2 (01:00:59):
Yeah, Jeffrey Epstein can barely use a keyboard.

Speaker 1 (01:01:02):
This is actually on the subreddit. I thought you were
just there's forty three comments.

Speaker 4 (01:01:08):
Come on, guys, I.

Speaker 2 (01:01:10):
Know so, I'm sorry. I thought it was funny. God,
good stuff. Andrew? Did you plug your pluggables yet?

Speaker 4 (01:01:17):
Sure? Did Starter Trek? I don't know. Thanks, thanks for
having me. This is I won't. I cannot in good
conscience say it's fun to be here, but it's not.
We illuminated, but you are here. I have a pluggable
touch crap touch crab. You know what I should actually say.
Solidarity and Snacks is the mutual aid crew that I

(01:01:38):
run with out here in Los Angeles. They're great folks.
Solidarity and Snacks. You can find them.

Speaker 2 (01:01:44):
Okay, all right, everybody, This has been Behind the Bastards,
a podcast that you just listened to. Shame on you.

Speaker 1 (01:01:54):
Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website hoole
Zone Media dot com, or check us out on the
iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Full video episodes that Behind the Bastards are now streaming
on Netflix, dropping every Tuesday and Thursday. Hit Remind Me
on Netflix you don't miss an episode. For clips in

(01:02:15):
our older episode catalog, continue to subscribe to our YouTube
channel YouTube dot com slash at Behind the Bastards. We
love about forty percent of you, statistically speaking,