A 2014 e-mail, unearthed by the DOJ, exhibits Austin Hill pleading with Jeffrey Epstein to dump Ripple and Stellar. The chief know-how officer of Ripple claims that the corporate has no connections with Epstein.
Ripple’s CTO, David Schwartz, addressed the allegations. In his reply on X following the discharge of the DOJ paperwork, he made this clear.
On X, Joel Katz wrote that Epstein was not linked to Ripple or Stellar. He indicated that there isn’t a document of anybody within the companies having ever encountered Epstein and that the Bitcoin hyperlinks are prevalent amongst quite a few prosperous sellers.
By the way in which, I do not really feel that approach practically as strongly immediately as I did again them. You need to bear in mind, this was earlier than anybody was even asking whether or not cryptocurrencies have been securities, earlier than the ICO was invented, and so forth.
— David ‘JoelKatz’ Schwartz (@JoelKatz) January 31, 2026
Supply: JoelKatz
Hill’s Electronic mail Sparks Business Questions
An e-mail written on July 31, 2014 by Austin Hill to Epstein was discovered within the DOJ recordsdata and was titled “Stellar isn’t so Stellar.”
Hill instructed Epstein to divest or promote his shares in Ripple and Stellar, saying that being an advocate of these tasks would possibly flip one into an enemy. Co-founders of the corporate at Hill inspired anti-dual investments.
I hate to be a conspiracy theorist, however I would not be in any respect stunned if that is simply the tip of an enormous iceberg.https://t.co/ArqNp0ZhK5 pic.twitter.com/ibRXHc6uNh
— David ‘JoelKatz’ Schwartz (@JoelKatz) January 31, 2026
Supply: JoelKatz
Joel Katz tweeted that the place of Hill was a wider opinion. One other factor the e-mail delivered to mild was the rivalries within the ecosystem and the way supporting two competing tasks on the similar time could be detrimental to an organization.
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CTO Calls Out Potential Iceberg
Schwartz was open: he doesn’t like the thought of sounding like a conspiracy theorist, however thinks that the e-mail is simply the tip of the iceberg.
Ripple’s CTO mentioned that the group initially mentioned establishing nonprofits related to the tasks, however he didn’t agree with creating organizations aimed toward supporting people. He likened the idea to Walmart sponsoring academic nonprofit financial savings applications.
As Katz later clarified, he had fashioned his opinions sooner than the emergence of ICOs and the ensuing securities controversies, at a interval when no person might suppose that cryptocurrencies would turn out to be a multi-billion-dollar sector.
An e-mail was despatched to the business leaders, together with Joichi Ito and Reid Hoffman. Hill requested a cellphone dialog to debate the problems and promised to seek out an equitable answer.
Schwartz is adamant on the purpose, claiming that Epstein and Ripple or Stellar employees didn’t maintain any conferences. The CTO made these statements to refute the conspiracies and clear the corporate.