A Forged Email Is Not a “Proof” that Epstein Founded Bitcoin

Original article (in Bosnian) was published on 11/2/2026; Author: Elma Murić

What are the claims?
Satoshi Nakamoto was a codename used by Jeffrey Epstein.
What are the facts?
The email that supposedly proves convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein used the bitcoin founder’s pseudonym is a forgery.

After the U.S. Department of Justice published part of the investigation files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on January 30, 2026 (the “Epstein files”), social media posts began linking numerous public figures from around the world to the former American financier.

In a Facebook post published on February 3, 2026, one profile claimed that Satoshi Nakamoto was “one of Jeffrey Epstein’s codenames”. Satoshi Nakamoto is the pseudonym widely believed to be used by the creator of the cryptocurrency bitcoin.

“It’s getting crazier but also clearer – Satoshi Nakamoto, the founder of Bitcoin, is one of Jeffrey Epstein’s codenames.”

As “evidence,” the post shared a screenshot of an alleged email exchange in which Epstein tells his associate Ghislaine Maxwell that “the Satoshi pseudonym works perfectly” and that “our little digital gold mine is ready for the world”.

At the time this analysis was written, the post had more than 250 interactions. The same post was found on another Facebook profile as well.

What are the facts?

According to Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Satoshi Nakamoto is believed to be a pseudonym used by the person (or persons) who helped develop the first bitcoin software and introduced the concept of cryptocurrency to the broader public through the paper ‘Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System’ (2008)”.

In the email presented as proof that Jeffrey Epstein was behind the pseudonym, the message is shown as supposedly sent from Epstein’s email address, jepstein@financial.net, to gmaxwell@terramar.org. Epstein’s associate Ghislaine Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison for her role in the sexual exploitation of underage girls.

A search of the publicly available database of Epstein documents (archived here), published by the U.S. Department of Justice, returns 23 results for the term “Satoshi” and 25 for “Nakamoto”. None of these results include the email shown in the post. A more targeted search of the database for specific phrases from the email, such as “Satoshi pseudonym”, “Our little digital gold mine”, or “Project ‘Bitcoin’ Funding & Whitepaper” (the alleged subject line), also returns no results.

U.S. fact-checking outlet Snopes examined the email in a detailed analysis published on February 7, 2026, after it began circulating widely on English-language social media. The outlet’s journalists also searched other repositories containing Epstein-related documents, including the website jmail.world (archived here), but found no relevant results (1, 2, 3).

They reviewed all documents that contained links to the words “Satoshi” and “Nakamoto”. These included newsletters, emails between Epstein and other people discussing cryptocurrencies, informational presentations about cryptocurrencies (including one that appeared to be an investment pitch for bitcoin), and academic papers on technologies related to cryptocurrencies.

In addition, they identified several inconsistencies in the email’s formatting that further suggest it is fabricated. For example, beneath the date and subject line, two different “To” lines appear for the recipient – something that is unusual and not present in other authentic emails from the same archive.

The recipient address also uses the domain terramar.org, associated with “TerraMar,” an organization founded by Maxwell in 2012, while the email is supposedly from late October 2008.

Snopes further noted that searching the archives did not produce any other emails beginning with “Hi Bine”, which would be a nickname for Maxwell, making it unlikely that such a form of address would appear only once. Snopes concluded the email was forged, though it could not determine who created it.According to the facts, we rate the earliest post sharing the forged email as “evidence” that Satoshi Nakamoto was a codename for Jeffrey Epstein as fake news. Later posts are rated as spreading fake news.