Fact Check: NO Email From Jeffrey Epstein About Satoshi 'Pseudonym' Or 'Little Digital Gold Mine' In Released Epstein Files

Fact Check

  • by: Maarten Schenk
Fact Check: NO Email From Jeffrey Epstein About Satoshi 'Pseudonym' Or 'Little Digital Gold Mine' In Released Epstein Files Not In Files

Is there an email from Jeffrey Epstein to Ghislaine Maxwell in the released "Epstein Files" that talks about project "Bitcoin" and "our little digital gold mine"? No, that's not true: A search of the released files does not bring up anything with the phrase from a viral image in it. However there are several real documents that do mention Satoshi Nakamoto, the founder of Bitcoin.

The image of the purported email appeared in a post on X (archived here) on February 1, 2026 with the question:

Is this true?

The image in the post looked like this:

(Image source: post by @TedPillows on x.com)

The text in the image read:

Date: October 31, 2008
Subject: RE: Project "Bitcoin" Funding & Whitepaper
To: RE: Project "Bitcoin" Funding & Whitepaper
From: J. Epstein <[email protected]>
To: G. Maxwell <[email protected]>


Hi Bine,
Ghislaine, the "Satoshi" pseudonym is working perfectly.
Our little digital gold mine is ready for the world.
Funding secured.
-Jeffrey

The image clearly isn't a real email: it has two "To:" lines, one of which is identical to the "Subject:" line.

A search of the "Epstein Files" via the website of the Department of Justice does show several files containing the name "Satoshi" (archived here).

satoshi1.jpg

(Image source: screenshot of results at https://www.justice.gov/epstein/search)

However, searches for the phrase "little digital gold mine" or the email address "[email protected]" showed no results:

satoshi2.jpg

(Image source: screenshot of results at https://www.justice.gov/epstein/search)

satoshi3.jpg

(Image source: screenshot of results at https://www.justice.gov/epstein/search)

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  Maarten Schenk

Maarten Schenk is the co-founder and COO/CTO of Lead Stories and an expert on fake news and hoax websites. He likes to go beyond just debunking trending fake news stories and is endlessly fascinated by the dazzling variety of psychological and technical tricks used by the people and networks who intentionally spread made-up things on the internet.

Read more about or contact Maarten Schenk

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