Brock Pierce’s dark and disturbing friendship with Jeffrey Epstein
It’s 2010 and Jeffrey Epstein is having a crash out.
His reputation, already in tatters after his 2008 conviction for procuring minors for prostitution, is spiralling further out of control as outlets and reporters, including The Huffington Post, Julie K. Brown, and Wired, uncover more and more juicy details about his salacious lifestyle.
In an effort to halt the decline, Epstein seeks out help from Alfred Seckel, aka Al Seckel, a serial scammer and illusionist who’s been dating Ghislaine Maxwell’s sister, Isabel, for years.
Epstein tasks Seckel with what he presumes to be a relatively cheap and easy job: wipe the internet of his sins.
This proves to be a pipe dream. Whether due to Seckel’s own incompetence and greed or due to Epstein’s unrepairable reputation, a $25,000 job becomes a $45,000 job, with an added luxury conference — called The Mindshift Conference — hosted on Little Saint John’s and to be paid for by the Epstein Foundation.
And so begins the blossoming of a fruitful eight-year long friendship for Brock Pierce and Jeffrey Epstein.
Warning: this article contains descriptions of violence and sexual assault. We have also provided a zipped folder containing the majority of the files we found useful for this article out of the 1,816 results that appear for “Brock Pierce” in the newly released Epstein Files.
The Mindshift Conference
The Mindshift Conference, which featured Murray Gell-Mann, Frances Arnold, Reichart Von Wolfshield, Brock Pierce, and many others, came with a hefty $55,000 hotel expense bill, as well as costs for flying out speakers, and preparing Little Saint John’s.
It proved to be a spectacular failure for Epstein.
Indeed, an event Epstein initially hoped would rival TEDTalks was, according to Epstein himself, “the worst meeting (the Epstein Foundation) has ever had.”
Epstein, who was growing increasingly wary of Seckel’s motives, hated the conference so much that he sent an email from “Susan” to Seckel to complain — the email was filled with all of Epstein’s usual spelling and grammatical errors.
However, there was one important detail that would have far-reaching consequences buried in the details of this fake complaint. Epstein (as Susan) wrote, “reichart was interesting as was brock.”
After this, Epstein found himself interested in Bitcoin and cryptocurrency-at-large, concepts he previously suggested were only for criminals.
This heel-turn is namely due to a presentation by, and the oozing charisma of, Brock Pierce.
Seckel and Epstein soon had a total falling out, with Epstein telling Ghislaine Maxwell by late 2012 that Seckel is “a bad guy.”
It didn’t help that Seckel was involved with deceit involving an Isaac Newton portrait or that he attempted to sell Epstein a collection of falsified antiquarian books.
But the failed conference got Pierce’s foot in the door with a potential investor, and he didn’t let the opportunity pass. Pierce and Epstein met several times over the course of 2011 and by April, only three months after the conference, Pierce was asking Epstein for financial advice:
The pair continued to get closer and closer and by 2012, their relationship had evolved into something entirely different.
Read more: New Epstein files reveal contact with Bitcoin dev Andresen before CIA briefing
Girls (Russian and Ukrainian, to be exact)
A year after Pierce and Epstein met and four years since Epstein’s procurement of a minor for prostitution guilty plea, a distinct change occurs in the discussions between the two financiers: women came up a lot, often in disparaging or objectifying terms.
The first time Epstein sent women to Pierce, it included someone who Epstein referred to in later emails as “my little susie” or “sue” and takes place in March 2012, in Los Angeles.
Sue would play a major role in the relationship between Epstein and Pierce later.
In the first record that showed Epstein sending women to Pierce, he told Pierce to “leave your girlfriend home.” Pierce replied, “Will do. Broke up with GF last night so that won’t be a problem.”
A month later, in April 2012, Epstein told Pierce that “my new russian, is in la working she knows no one, if you could help her see some of I.a. .. I would appreicate it.”
Pierce failed. The Russian doesn’t meet with him, but after a strange back and forth, he had a concession: “I know a girl in NY you may like. How should I introduce you?”
Epstein responded, “details. ? she can come to meet when others are there.”
Only one month after sharing the information of the girl in New York, Pierce was given a new mission from Epstein when he told the financier and pedophile that he was visiting Moscow, Kiev, and Odessa: “Take photos and find me a present.”
Pierce responded with “Will do. :-).”
Only three days later, Pierce shared with Epstein dozens of images of a woman named Anastasia. He added at the bottom of the email, “Ukraine is now my favorite country.”
Read more: Former DCG advisor Larry Summers on list of Jeffrey Epstein’s ‘Harvard friends’
Business begins
Beginning in 2013, Pierce and Epstein often sought one another out for advice and also started to do business together.
In May of 2013, less than a year before its inevitable collapse, Pierce shared with Epstein that he was planning on purchasing the largest Bitcoin exchange in the world, MtGox.
Epstein, who was unfamiliar with the exchange, asked if it had been seized by the US government (it hadn’t). The purchase never occured, and in April of 2014, it was revealed that MtGox had lost the majority of its users’ money.
Pierce didn’t give up on acquiring MtGox, trying again after its collapse with an initiative he named Gox Rising.
Also in May of 2013, Epstein spoke to Bill Gross — the co-founder of the Pacific Investment Management Company (PIMCO), the world’s current largest ETF manager with $2 trillion AUM — about a Brock Pierce-related cryptocurrency concept.
Most likely, this was an early reference to Tether, which was only a year from its launch.
By 2014, Epstein was partnering with Pierce on investments and assisting him with his business affairs.
For example, Epstein looked over a Noble Bank/Markets Nasdaq agreement — the Puerto Rico-based international financial entity started by Pierce and John Betts that briefly served as the main “bank” for the stablecoin tether.
The most important partnership between the two came shortly thereafter: a $3 million investment in Coinbase through a fund started by Bradford and Bart Stephens.
Perhaps most embarrassing about the Epstein Coinbase investment is that they knew who had put in the money to purchase shares.
As Pierce rushed to get the deal closed, he shared one awkward, hurried email: “I need permission to let the founder know who you are.”
The email seemed to be an assurance that no one outside of Pierce, Epstein, and the founders of Coinbase would ever be aware that Epstein had personally been involved, his identity hidden behind a faceless fund.
Likely with this in mind, Coinbase accepted the $3 million investment from Epstein.
Attempted corporate espionage, legal help, and PIs
It was clear by 2014 that Pierce and Epstein had become far more than simple business partners and acquaintances.
They shared women and investments, and spent time together in Los Angeles, New York, and Little Saint James.
Their back-and-forths were filled with nonchalant references to questionable and seemingly nefarious behavior.
In June of 2014, Epstein innocuously asked Pierce “do you know the Winklevoss’s?”
Pierce responded he does, to which, out of nowhere, Epstein responded that he was going to “send Svetlana to them to get a download of the space, I prefer not to go through the Silicon Valley gossip mafia.”
For what it’s worth, the Svetlana that Epstein is sending to the Winklevoss twins was most likely Svetlana Pozhidaeva, a Russian national who refused to speak about her relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.
According to the New Zealand Herald, Pozhidaeva is the daughter of a prestigious Russian family that lived in an apartment block associated with the KGB.
Meanwhile, strange continuations of unrecorded conversations were splattered throughout their emails. In 2015, Pierce asked Epstein if he was familiar with Jeff Herman — a lawyer who represented several victims of Epstein.
Epstein said, “Very bad guy, was suspended from practice.”
“Do a Google search on me,” Pierce insisted. “He’s suing four of my friends… Any dirt you have could prove helpful.”
A few months later, in a cryptic, short email from Epstein to Pierce, he simply said, “What was the name of your favorite investigator? I forgot.”
Pierce didn’t reply through email.
Lastly, and years later, Pierce let Epstein know that he failed to pay his taxes for five years and requested legal help.
Epstein fell over himself to assist Pierce, advising him to reach out to Alan Dlugash and insisted that Pierce not speak to any accountants and let his lawyers take care of the problems for him.
The tax problems appear to quickly disappear.
Read more: Tether founder Brock Pierce defaults, loses hotel, sues partner
My Little Susie and polygamy
One of the strangest episodes dotting the Pierce-related Epstein Files was the multi-year love story between Pierce and a woman who worked for Epstein named Sue.
As pointed out earlier, the first recorded example of Pierce and Sue spending time together is in Los Angeles in 2012. But Sue continued to come up, all the way through 2018.
In 2015, Epstein described Pierce to Joi Ito as “little Sue’s boyfriend.”
In fact, it appears that, for some reason, Epstein has a distinct interest in Pierce’s relationship with Sue. He repeatedly asks Pierce if he’s faithful to or cheating on Sue and sends him reminders about important dates related to her.
While they stopped mentioning her for several years, she popped up one final time, in what was arguably the most obvious example of law breaking, deception, and odious intentions: Pierce wanted to marry Sue while already being married, he wanted to be a polygamist.
Introducing Epstein to Steve Bannon
What perhaps had the clearest real world consequences in regard to the Pierce-Epstein friendship was that Pierce introduced Epstein to political strategist and chaos agent Steve Bannon in 2016/2017.
While both Pierce and Epstein almost always referred to Bannon as “Steve,” the timeline that Pierce stated lined up thoroughly with his relationship to Bannon.
When Bannon worked at Goldman Sachs they took a majority share in Pierce’s company called IGE and installed Bannon as the new head of the company (the business model they incorporated was basically paying Chinese gamers less-than-living wages to find loot in World of Warcraft and upsell it to Westerners).
Within the short amount of time that Bannon and Epstein were friends, they spent a lot of time together and plotted all kinds of fantastical ploys and plots, from new cryptocurrencies to disrupting the dollar hegemony.
It’s unclear who influenced who more.
Coinbase cashout
Just over a year before Epstein’s final arrest, in 2018, Bradford Stephens reached out to Epstein’s lawyer, Darren Indyke, in an attempt to purchase back the Coinbase shares that Epstein still controlled.
The transaction didn’t go as smoothly as Stephens hoped, as he started his offer at only $15 million — a $12 million profit on Epstein’s initial investment.
Epstein refused. He asked for $11 million for half his position. And then more. And more. Eventually, Stephens handed over $15 million for half of Epstein’s position, the other half Epstein held on to, planning to let it ride until an eventual IPO.
If the Epstein estate did hold its Coinbase position through until the IPO, it’s possible that his initial $3 million investment, thanks to Brock Pierce, netted his estate over $100 million.
A known pedophile’s great friend
Pierce, unlike many other financiers, cultural elites, and venture capitalists, met Epstein after his first conviction and remained a close confidant up to the second arrest.
Pierce both profited off his friendship with Epstein and, essentially, made Epstein tens of millions of dollars.
They sent emails often, cared about one another, worried about each other, and shared legal, accounting, and financial advice regularly.
There are several emails in which Pierce wishes Epstein a happy birthday, a happy new year, and even one where he tells him “love you” (while inviting him to a “boat in Antigua… full of Ukraine’s finest”).
Pierce has done his best to distance himself from his past, from working at Digital Entertainment Network in the early aughts, to moving to Spain with infamous pedophile Marc Collins-Rector, to cozying up to chaos agent Steve Bannon.
But it’s impossible for him to distance himself from Jeffrey Epstein. Brock Pierce and Jeffrey Epstein’s legacies will be tied together forever.
We reached out to Brock Pierce for comment and will update this piece should we hear back.
Got a tip? Send us an email securely via Protos Leaks. For more informed news, follow us on X, Bluesky, and Google News, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.