Behind the Bastards - Part Two: How Jeffrey Epstein Helped Build the Modern World

Episode Date: February 19, 2026

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.

WallZone Media. Ah, welcome pod to Behind the Bastard cast episodes Epstein Jeffrey. I'm Robert Evans. Hi. How are you doing, Andrew Tee? I don't like that you said the last sentence in syntactical order. Yeah, yeah, it's upsetting, isn't it? Evans, Robert, am I?

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.

I just ate the top half of a tomato and I actually feel pretty energized. Best half of a tomato, to be honest. Like the bottom half of a tomato, that's for chumps. Idiots, really. Stem side. You got to nibble around the stem. Got to nibble the stem, baby. I'm always saying that.

That's why that's my motto, baby. Nibble the stem, you know? No stem. You put it on T-shirts. That's right. I'm out. 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. Thanks, I guess. I don't know, Andrew T on social media. But I do, yo, is this racist, the podcast, and we have our premium shows at suboptimalpods.com, which are fun. We've been doing one called Starter Track, which is really fun. A little slightly insider look at Star Trek.

I love it. Tony Newsom knows everything about Star Trek. She writes on Starfleet Academy. She was the voice of Beckett Mariner. other stuff, 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 30 years, go to amppdx.org. That's amppdx.org. Okay. That's all the... Robert, I appreciate the chance to plug before all the heinous shit gets said. Yes, yes.

You like the separation? Yeah. It's important to plug before the heinous 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. This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. In the middle of the night, Sasquia awoke in a haze.

Her husband, Mike, was on his laptop. What was on his screen would change Saskia's life forever. I said, I need you to tell me exactly what you're doing. And immediately, the mask came off. You're supposed to be safe. That's your home. That's your husband. Listen to Betrayal Season 5 on the IHeart Radio app,

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To hear this and more, listen to Selective Ignorance with, Mandy B from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. 1969, Malcolm and Martin are gone. America is in crisis. And at Morehouse College, the students make their move. These students, including a young Samuel L. Jackson,

locked up the members of the Board of Trustees, including Martin Luther King's Senior. It's the true story of protests and rebellion in black American history that you'll never forget. I'm Hans Charles. I'm in a lick Lamouber. Listen to the A building on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can scroll the headlines all day and still feel empty.

I'm Ben Higgins, and if you can hear me, is where culture meets the soul. Honest conversations about identity, loss, purpose, peace, faith, and everything in between. Celebrities, thinkers, everyday people, some have answers. Most are still figuring it out. And if you've ever felt like there has to be more to the story, this show is for you. Listen to if you can hear me on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 and words that he used in an idiosyncratic fashion that only his friends in his social circle fully understood. Everyone's like this. But it's weird to be confronted by these very human. aspects of the life of a monster. More pointedly, it's frustrating because it means there's a lot that we'll never fully understand. For example, Epstein started sending girls. And again, since the term girls was used in the email, and this is Jeffrey Epstein, we must assume they were underage kids to Brock, or at least there's a good chance they were

to Brock. One of these girls, Epstein described as, My Little Susie or Sue, an emails he sent during the spring of 2012. Ew. I don't think we have a great idea of who this was yet. I haven't figured, at least my clumsy searching around and not figure out who Sue was. And given that she's probably a victim, I 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 the kind of interest that makes me think that because he connected them. Maybe Epstein saw Sue as his inn 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 1st of 2012, he messaged Jeffrey saying, I know a girl in New York you may like. How should I introduce you?

And then 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. So great, you know? Like this just gives you kind of an insight into how things worked, right? This is, Brock has, 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 girls, right?

Which is an evolution of their relationship. Again, I don't know how old this person is. But he does use the word girl. So it's not legally questionable to wonder, 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 was wrong, but it doesn't feel like they're They knew it was illegal. Yeah.

I don't think they knew it was wrong in immorals. They certainly don't believe it. But they know that if people find out they could get in trouble about a lot of what they're doing. Right? They don't seem to consider what they're doing to be wrong. No. They treat sex trafficking of underage girls the way I think normal people treat like doing drugs, right? Yeah.

We're 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. 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 2012. Yeah. Epstein asked him to take photos and find. me a present. And Pierce replied, we'll do, and then a smiley face. And those photos are photos of girls. And the present is girls, right?

Several days later, Pierce replied with more than a dozen images of what I, 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 right just Ukraine but I don't know I feel like when you're the sex trafficking is I shouldn't be a pedant about language here

no fuck them all 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 two at this point right yeah which gives you an idea of how a lot of his relationships 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 function. It's sort of just like this like low rent frat house shit. Right, right, exactly. And they talk about it that way, right?

Yeah. 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 30 years younger than them, right? Yeah. And they met her fucking. because Gillen Maxwell spider outside of a high school or something. I don't know.

It's gross. Also in 2012, Epstein continued to gather influence in the world of video games. He started emailing regularly with Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick. 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 2012, which is in that month, Kotick visited New York. But they had been friends previously.

right? We know the two plan to meet in person during that November 2012 trip, and we know that Epstein even tempted Cotech to come a day earlier by saying, hey, if you show up early, you can hang out with Woody Allen. Ew. Oh, boy. Well, I'm on board.

Who doesn't want to hang with Woody Allen? I mean, look, at least these guys' morality is consistent. Yeah. The first time I saw Woody in one of these, I had a moment of freak out. I was like, oh, God, is it Woody Harrelson? That would really bum me.

out. And it's like, oh, no, Woody Allen exists. It's got to 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 also brings out like Woody Allen's going to be there. It could be you and me and Woody Allen partying together. So he seems to think this is like a big get for a lot. Like this is maybe I sweeten the putt with Woody Allen, this rich famous guy will, want to hang out with me. I mean, to be fair, Manhattan is basically what these guys are trying to aspire to, like, at all times. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Manhattan or fucking, I mean,

I don't know, 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 2012. Kotech is connected to Epstein for quite a while longer than that. We have a 2004, April of 2004 email between him and Gillen 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. It's weird.

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 much of an award. Still, ew. The most significant aspect of Kotick and Epstein's friendship was that Jeffrey used as an influence over Bobby to push for more microtransact. actions 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 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 2nd of 2013, Kotick asked to Epstein for advice ahead of a meeting with New York City Department of Education Chancellor Joel Klein. Specifically, he asked if Epstein knew of any edutainment games that were 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 in 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 Kotick felt about micro-transactions. Here's what he introduced to the industry. I don't have a clear thing for that, but what I can say is Bobby Kotick 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 microtransactions in gaming to some level, right? And like— Not the main, but he's one of the dominoes there, right? Yeah, and with Kotick, this is like—if we're in 2013, he got divorced in 2012. This is before he starts publicly dating Cheryl Sandberg. Yes, it is. But this is just like an interesting timeline for this. From Gillen Maxwell to Cheryl Sandberg.

What a fascinating romantic life this man's had. Yeah, it's just a disturbing weird little guy. Was it, did you repost on Blue Sky something about like, or maybe you're going to get to this, about like, one of the reasons is to like indoctrinate kids into like. Yes, we're talking about all that right now. So, Cotec emails in being like, do you have any suggestions for this meeting with this guy from 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. I don't think people learn a lot accurate war history from Call of Duty or Medal of Honor. Some stuff, sure. Well, they certainly learned that their two equal sides are the allies. and the Germans. And it's morally fine to be on either side. To play either, right? Now, what's interesting to me about this is that Epstein's initial response, like, just play

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 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. Like I don't know if someone else wrote it for him. Right. He like copy pasted from a white paper somewhere. 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 are, quote, already great at teaching and then expresses something almost identical to how pro-a-I people argue chatbots are going to revolutionize education. Fundamentally, 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 ceding that into society. No, but no. It's interesting to see like this is, you know, a decade, years later going to be, a decade or so later, going to be what like all of the AI bros are saying about education. And it's interesting to see Jeffrey land of the same spot in like 2012. Well, but also, because that's largely just the right wing thing is like, who cares? Got to get rid of teachers. Yeah.

Yeah. Get rid of teachers. Give your people the dumbest, most uninformative thing. It's fine. 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. If we do this, then we have control of the computers that are teaching kids and thus the things that they learn, right? But do you think it's that. Because that's the thing that I sometimes have trouble with is like, well, yeah, but it's, or I guess what I mean is like that, that nefarious, but not, because they're so dumb and not detail oriented otherwise that I, like, have trouble squaring, like, this grand vision and actually pulling it off. I guess maybe it's that. Yeah. It's less of a grand. 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 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 who destroy education. I think he just sees this 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 the people in this, yeah, who are.

doing this job, right? And I guess, like, the vision versus the execution is what, like, that's what ICE is. Ice is the vision and the execution of that vision, which is shoddy. And he's just kind of got and he's talking with his other rich friend because he's and he's an idea guy, right? That's Epstein's whole, 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, like smart, rich guys care about. Quote, the best scheme I've come up with so far is to use the XPRIZE 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 guess to get him addicted. To be fair. That's what he said.

Yeah. Not that this is a good use, but probably one of the. least sinister uses of go straight for the kids, Jeffrey Epstein has ever. Yes. Yes. This is, yeah, right? But like grading on a curve. Although you say that, let me continue. Because as soon as he says, you want to skip convincing parents and teachers 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 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, Konichiwa. 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 learn to read and pronounce kanji. That's, but that's why I'm like, they're so dumb. I just can't believe we're ruled by these fonts. There's the, there's 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 like all these unfuckable dweaves finally like forced their way into some sex through violence and coercion. Yeah. And now they would impress the man. 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 out of read kanji and yeah little girls kind of being enticed i i have issues believing this would work on boys but like are they going to want the big tited hot

princess geoffrey in this game for schools that you want to put in schools ew 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 and profit. 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 education. 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 they are addicted. addicted to playing that 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 than they're learning in school and society, right? You want to think about like how gaming culture has been used by guys like Bannon who were attached to Epstein. You can see some really direct through lines here, right?

Yeah. Now, after Epstein goes on this very weird rant, Bobby Cotech, doesn't. respond, are you fucking crazy? Instead, he responds, X-Prize is a good idea, but key is real-world rewards, learn to read, earn cell phone minutes, iPhone credits, virtual items, and games. That's a funny email in its own right. Future is Pablo's Holman, who's looped in, Epstein loops Pablo's into this conversation, and Pablo's responds with just a dig at Bobby Kotech, saying, I'm all for indoctrinating kids into an economy. You got to love who his example for real world rewards is virtual items and games.

Yeah. Which is, I mean, Pablo, Pablo, you're, uh, you're tied to Jeffrey Epstein forever now, so that's shameful, but that is a pretty good dick. Yeah. I mean, Bobby Kotick is a dumb ass. Like, every time you don't respond only with what the fuck are you guys talking about, that's a deep shame. Yeah.

And Holman is obviously correct that Kotick is a visionless slug of a man who ruined at least one great company. These emails were sent just a few weeks after the launch of Colobiles. Duty Black Ops 2, 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 further, with paid special characters, voiceover packs, skins, camo, and even weapons. It's not hard to draw a line between these conversations with Epstein and industry figures

and the sudden boom in microtransactions 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 in the DOJ documents. And Epstein, again, he doesn't invent the idea of microtransactions 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? The fact that the game is addictive and has the guns and the tits and, you know, makes money is part of like what keeps the kid paying attention and 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 playing games where they're going to be sending money regularly and gambling for stuff like loot boxes, right? And it's also like that most of these are built on whales. Like it isn'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. 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 random, it still affects them, right? Yeah, of course. Researchers from the Australian Consumer Policy Research Center, the CPRC, and Manash University in 2016 identified 20 dark patterns of monetization in modern games, the worst of which were gambling-like features such as paid loot box. like the ones Bobby Kotick helped push at Activision Blizzard.

Per an investigation by ABC Australia, quote, the design features were not in all games, but 95% of adult players surveyed had come across them and 83% had suffered negative consequences. So this is a harmful industry, and it's one that, you know, Jeffrey is a cheerleader for. Again, he's not the founder of it, but he's one of the dominoes here.

Today, the global online micro-transaction market is worth more than $75 billion a year. As Epstein said, we have to keep the boobs and guns and profit, right? An article in the 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 professor of human geography at Lauborough University.

Her research found gambling techniques make gamers play for longer and spend more money and drive for Pete 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 Kalshi, right? 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, right? Right. 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 sea.

suites, right? I should also note that Epstein and Kotick's friendship went deeper than just work-related conversations. These aren't just guys who are talking shop. Perukotaku article by Ethan Gatch. Emails between the two were allegedly exchanged multiple times in 2013 as well. A February 24th, 2013 email stated that Epstein was in L.A. planning a visit to SpaceX that week and was trying to link up with Kotick while in town.

Thanks, but rather see you, Epstein wrote in one email, taking girls after to Bel-Belle. Co-Tick at one point allegedly wrote back, Come with your friends to my house, Beverly Hills, 10 minutes from Bel Air. Great. Also, this is an insane thing to put in an email, dude. It's crazy. Got to hang out with Elon Musk at SpaceX

before taking my girls to the CEO of Activision Blizzard's house. And again, notably, Elon's not invited. Right, Elon's, oh, I mean, you don't want him at the good parties. You don't want him and Bobby Kotit. in a room at the same time.

That's just too much cool. You know who else is cool? Me? Some would say, sure, of course. Sophie, yes. Andrew T. Sure, Andrew T. I'm okay.

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I'm Minalick Lamouba. It's 1969. Malcolm X or Martin Luther King Jr. Have both been assassinated. And Black America was out of breaking point. Writing and protests broke out on an unprecedented scale. In Atlanta, Georgia, at Martin's Almemata, Morehouse College, the students had their own protest.

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What do you do in the headlines don't explain what's happening inside of you? I'm Ben Higgins, and if you can hear me, is where culture meets me. the soul, a place for real conversation. Each episode, I sit down with people from all walks of life, celebrities, thinkers, and everyday folks, and we go deeper than the polished story. We talk about what drives us, what shapes us, and what gives us hope. We get honest about the big stuff, identity when you don't recognize yourself anymore, loss that changes you purpose when success isn't enough, peace when your mind won't slow down,

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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 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. Mount Gok 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 store 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 bank five.

It could have been called the chaos orb, so I guess it could be worse. It could have been called the chaos orb. Yeah, I mean, we're further along. on our decline now. Per an article on the website, protus.com by Cass Piancy. Quote, Epstein, who was unfamiliar with the exchange, asked if it had been seized by the U.S. government. It hadn't.

The purchase had never occurred. And in April of 2014, it was revealed that Mount Gox had lost the majority of its users' money. All 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.

Yeah. Yeah. That's fine, though. No FDIC. Not at all regulated, baby. We don't need an FDIC. We don't need that. That's big government. We'll talk about why that's funny.

But what's funny immediately here is that even after the whole bank gets stolen, Pierce doesn't give up acquiring Mount Gox. He tries after it collapses to buy it. And he starts this initiative called Gox Rising, which like, why are you tied to the magic the gathering bank that got that lost every, like, why are you invested in? invested in continuing that journey, Brock. Oh, God. Is it just the name Mount Gox is so appealing to you?

I don't get it. I mean, look, brand recognition, you know, that's half the battle. The brand recognition is that place that lost everyone's money, but yeah. But not anymore. Yeah. We couldn't possibly lose it twice. Yeah, it happened twice. That's crazy.

So you should, the fact that Pierce still thinks this is a good idea, I should tell you something about Pierce and the fact that Epstein continues to treat this kid as a genius should let you know that Jeffrey Epstein was not nearly as intelligent as he gets credited with being sometimes. Yeah. The same month, Brock started trying to buy Mount Gox. Epstein reaches out 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? Yes. I think I have some. I don't remember why. 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 add. 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 FDIC does. But the idea is it's a way to make cryptocurrency less dangerous.

and volatile, right? Tether is what's called supposed to be a stable coin. That's the idea. I just say, I think the only reason I have any cryptocurrency is to play quasi-legal international digital poker. Of course, Andrew. Yeah. 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 can be worth zero tomorrow, right? Yeah. Tether was ostensibly pegged to the U.S. 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 pegged to the dollar. But that's not even on its face real, because Tether is meant to actually be 50% backed by cash or cash equivalence, 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 will reimburse, at least for North. I think it's up to a quarter of a million dollars in account or something like that, but they'll reimburse your losses, right?

Yeah. The government is saying, if the bank fucks up, you're not screwed as a regular person because this is 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, banks don't have 50% of their assets backed by cash or equivalents, right? So Tether's actually more realistic than a bank, right? And the reality is there 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 going to do what they want with it. Some racists are holding your money. Right. 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 a lot of money over the course of its lifetime.

I'm sure he did very well on this. Now, 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 2014. In 2019, Tether surpassed Bitcoin and trading volume, and it is currently tied to about half of all Bitcoin's sales, even though the Wall Street Journal has reported on Tether increasingly showing up in cases of money laundering and the financing of terrorist groups.

In 2021, 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 $41 million for violations of the commodity exchange. Act. Now, I've left into the future, past the lifespan of Jeffrey, just to make it clear, this was a shady business from the beginning, right? This is never a good business. Like all this shit. Yeah. Of course. Yes. Yes. Yeah, like all of this shit. So Epstein leans in to this fact, right, in his email to Gross, because he's trying to talk a finance guy into getting on the crypto board here. Gross is the guy who works at Pemco, who he'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. Two, 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 early in the process and made it clear they were all willing to go to jail to their ideas.

We know he's in touch with Gavin. We don't know who else necessarily. I mean, we'll talk later. There's other guys that Bitcoin he's attached to. But this is some more evidence, at least that he wants other people to think. Maybe he's lying about this, right? But also, we know he was talking. talking to Gavin, we know he's in touch with a number of these guys, and we know 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, that doesn't mean that he was like making big final decisions on Bitcoin, but it means that 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 2014, Epstein helps Brock Pierce ink a deal with Noble Bank to create a Puerto Rico-based company that would act as the real money bank for Tether, right? Like, this is the actual bank that's going to provide the cash that

supposedly backs up this stable coin. 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 Pierce in the beginning stages of Tether becoming a thing, but he helps make a deal with the bank that acts as like the backing for Tether. He's important in this, right? And this is 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 were true believers. Right. Yeah, they really wanted to weaken the power of the state and the Federal Reserve by decoupling currency from the government, right? And 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 at which it starts slowly trying to replicate the features of the real financial system in order to 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. Right. So that's what Epstein's involvement in crypto is 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 system. The trappings of actual money as opposed to a digital lottery ticket. Right. Right. Right. It's opposed to the thing my friends. used to buy drugs in 2009 with e-gold, right?

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 Pearson, like, that's why you want the real money, right? That's why Tether's valuable. The pyramid scheme, the pyramid needs to be shored up at the base. This is safe.

Put your money in. Then we cash out our holdings to get real money. money. Yeah. In 2014, Epstein put $3 million of his own money into an investment in a new Bitcoin trading exchange, Coinbase, founded by the Stevens brothers, Bradford and Bart. Cass Pianci 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 one awkward, hurried email with Epstein. I need permission to let the founder know who you are, right? So Epstein is putting this money in to fund Coinbase, which is like Pierce is helping to broker, you know, this deal to to provide like the basic funding to get Coinbase off the ground. And Pierce's as he's communicating with the people he's working with at Coinbase realizes Epstein is a convicted sex criminal. 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, right? 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 Coinbase people are like, yeah, it's fine with us, right? Yeah. Of course. Cool stuff. And Coinbase is the new amount. It's the big exchange people get into now

when they're starting in crypto, right? Yeah. Yeah. Cool stuff. Do they still have Super Bowl ads? I guess we'll find out. I don't think they're doing Super Bowl ads anymore, but they're still around.

Something, yeah. Yeah, that Matt Damon money ran out, though. But you know who does have the money to hire Matt Damon? Not me. The sponsors of this show. Maybe us. If you buy enough of the products that advertise on our show. Sophie and I 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. Oh, I really just want to take this as an excuse to talk about Ben Affleck's back tattoo again. I'll always talk about

Ben Affleck's back tattoo. I know. It's great. Let's all think about that while these ads run. Canadian women are looking for more. More out of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world are them. And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart. And I'm Catherine Clark. And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women.

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Listen to if you can hear me on the I-HeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. We're back and, boy, I sure love Ben Affleck's back tattoo of Phoenix. Ben Affleck. Ben Affleck. Well done. Yeah. Yeah. That was relaxing for me, to be honest. In June of 2004, this part's not going to be relaxing, Sophie, because in June of 2014,

Jeffrey Epstein asked Brock Pierce if he knew the Winklevoss twins. Sick. Of course, those weird-looking fuckers show up in this. I know. Now, the Winklevi, if you're not familiar, were the guys who allegedly Mark Zuckerberg maybe stole the Facebook 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 Vi 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 24th, 2026, just a few days before I started work on these episodes, the SEC dropped their lawsuit against Jim and I, the crypto exchange founded by the Winkle Voss twins, right? Cool. So I love that. Yeah. So Pierce replies that he does know the Winkle

Voss twins, because of course he does. And Epstein says, okay, I'm going to send Svetlana 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. Great, great questions. Sophie. As Pianci notes, this was likely Svetlana Posidava, who 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, she, quote, 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 Brunel, who has been alleged to have recruited girls and women for Epstein. Right? Brunel is one of the people who are was 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 Svetlana 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 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. Russian intelligence. And this episode isn't primarily about that stuff, but this may be one more example of a we really don't know.

But like, I don't know what Stetlana was. Yeah. But maybe. Maybe. Yeah. 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 that our most powerful citizens were willing to do it anyway.

So it's sort of just like, like, you think. alleged Wendy Deng's behavior. She wakes up and she's like, they already did everything I was ordered to make them do. Well, and that 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 U.S. is. Right? Yeah. 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 that. process here, right?

No, you could easily see all of everyone at the, whatever the, whatever the KGB is now is just like, this is easy mode. This is destabilization on cheat codes because they simply do it for you every time. And you just find the levers like Epstein who have the connections and 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 2014 or so, 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 a very bad guy. In writing, my guy. In writing? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't leave a voice note at least. In an email. And Epstein responds, yeah, Herman's a really bad guy. He represented several of the women who were accusing me of six guys.

Yeah, he sounds like a bad guy. Cool stuff. 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 Joy Edo. Joy Edo was born in Kyoto, Japan on June 19, 1966.

His family immigrated to Canada when he was three and then to 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, ovonics. He became Timothy Leary's godson, which should tell you most of what you need to know about the social and political dynamics with which Joy Ito was raised. The company founder. Huh?

Yeah, yeah, wild shit, right? A hard year's child went to. The company founder, Stanford Ofcinski, kind of adopted Edo as a protege when he was a little kid. He just sees this kid's really into technology, into code, into like, engineering and stuff. And to the extent that, 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 Edo is 13 years old. Ovchinsky 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 Ito is kind of interesting to me. That like, 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? Yeah, yeah. The family maintained, Edo's family, maintained strong connections to their Japanese heritage and moved back to Japan when he was 14. He returns to the U.S. after he graduates to get his computer science

degree from Tufts University, which is where he meets future eBay billionaire Pierre Omidyar. Edo drops out of two different colleges, ultimately, because he's frustrated with the stupidity of the higher education system. Edo also becomes an influential part of the musical counterculture in Japan. He runs nightclubs in Japan. He helps to bring industrial music to the country. And he's also an angel investor in Kickstarter and Twitter, as well as a shitlet of other less well-known ventures like Photopedia.

He wins a 2011- The only cool person you've talked about so far, unfortunately. Yeah, he's not going to stay cool for long. He wins a 2011 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 25th of 2015, he sends an email to Jeffrey Epstein, asking for money.

It was in 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 like furthering Bitcoin's evolution are no longer getting paid. And here's how Edo in his email describes their importance. He's sending this to Epstein. The five core developers are like Linus Toro. of Linux. They decide what changes are made to the core code. Edo further informs Epstein that, quote, many organizations scrambled to step into the vacuum

created by the foundation and take control of the developers. He puts take 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. Edo continues. We moved quickly, talking to all of the various stakeholders and the three developers decided to join the Media Lab. This 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. Edo asks Jeffrey for this money. Jeffrey sends him the money. And this email I've just quoted from is Edo celebrating after they basically hire these develop. They buy these developers. developers, right?

You know, they buy all the printing, the money printing, they buy like, exactly, exactly. Yeah. Or at least,

yeah, the guys who have the keys to Fort Knox, maybe. Yeah. Well, 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, Eto emails Epstein saying, FYI used gift funds that's the money Epstein sent him to underwrite this, which allowed, us to move quickly and win this round. Thanks. And Epstein's response to this email is just, Gavin is clever.

This is Gavin Andreson, right? Yeah. 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 with the idea to do it. That's kind of what he's insinuating, right? 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, 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 X. RP is going to find, I don't know if he's the, I don't think 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 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. So if he'll have this up on video form, this is from August 10th of 2025, the unveil, the unves Vaccinated 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. What a cool guy. That's the kind of thinker, Patrick Riley is.

So after the most recent Epstein disclosure, Patrick makes a post and he attaches the email chain that I had been quoting from earlier to this post. and then he writes, at the time this letter was written, there were around 12,000 commits to Bitcoin's code. Today, there are 47,583 commits to Bitcoin's code. This means that 74.79% 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 Satoshi, but he was absolutely running the executive direction of Bitcoin on behalf of Mossad. What are the odds that there are backdoors built into Bitcoin's code at this point, probably about 100%.

He spells it, probably. He's 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. This post from Crypto Bitlord is a relevant example of many such responses to the... Not crypto bitlord. I know, I know. 75% of Bitcoin's code comes directly from Joffrey Epstein's investments. We've basically funded an elite pedophile ring since 2015.

I feel sick. And like, yeah, you guys got to have. Yeah. Like, Riley's wrong about a bunch, for one thing. There's not evidence that the fucking Massa, that Epstein was running Bitcoin on behalf of Mossad. He wasn't 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 to track Bitcoin.

Like what would the back door even be? Right? Also, you don't, you, like, you were funding a global pedophile ring by participating in Bitcoin before Jeffrey Epstein was involved. That's the only thing it's good for. 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 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 75% of BIT, which also isn't really accurate, right? Yeah. It's just that 75% of it was written after 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 Develop like Vladimir Wanderland during a castrapped period, 2015 to 2017. But here's the kicker. Epstein's money flowed through MIT's systems directly to developers. As one ex-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? Like, also... 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? And the technically true of it is like, what a, what a, like, grasp at that straw, dude.

Like, that's okay, I guess. Okay. 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 because he didn't want any power or influence in Bitcoin, right?

Yeah, that seems likely for Jeffrey Epstein. But also, like, like, the way power works is like simply by not allowing your competitor to exert influence, you have exerted influence. Like, he could have literally done nothing. Right. And as long as someone else that he didn't like wasn't doing something with it, that's doing a thing. That's doing a thing.

Yeah. Yeah. Now, this half-ass 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 shady donor, not a senior manager of Bitcoin.

And again, this is true. And to no one's surprise, Patrick Riley's tweet was nonsense. Again, but Epstein, he's 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. Now, Bitcoin Academy notes that per the structure of the deal, developers were unaware of the funding source. And maybe that's true.

Quick audience poll. 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. Quick pull. Like, do you think that they never learned where the money came from or who they had to keep happy? 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. He just did it for nothing. He just did it for nothing. Yeah. And it's like, no, he did it because he wanted a benefit. To make. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

There's just ways to communicate what you want. I know there's a degree which this is less satisfying because I can't say here's what he did specifically to involve. 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? Yeah. And even Bitcoin Academy couldn't entirely polish this turd.

The files show Epstein to cozy up to crypto figures. In 2014, he reportedly invested in Blockstream via Joy Ito'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 2000. But zero evidence exists of him touching Bitcoin's code. His real skill, name-dropping Satoshi's associates at parties. And this is true. His real skill is name-dropping famous people.

But that skill has value because people know Jeffrey can connect you to influential and wealthing people and to funding, which is what allows him to influence people, including the people who guided the development of Bitcoin. Wow. It's just there's not a count. argument, Jeffrey Epstein had the opportunity to significantly influence the development of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency as a whole. Right?

That's what matters. These two episodes have been weirdly like, he would be an odious person genuinely without the sex trafficking. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Like if he was not a pedophile, he would still be a monster. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And that is kind of the surprising thing to me, because previously I had 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. And like, no, no, he was unfortunately more influential than that. Alas. Anyway, that's going to do it for part two it. Wow.

I mean, as far as these go, 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 in a weird way. 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, and we've done like four episodes on Epstein, where 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 fucking. Sorry, right? 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 don't know. I hadn't occurred to me, really. I mean, I don't. It didn't to a lot of people. You knew it was influential, but I wouldn't have guessed a lot of this stuff was going on, right? Like, 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 shit that will. 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 wouldn't guess it ahead of time, you know? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it's not surprised, but I'm like, oh, fuck, huh? Yeah.

I didn't call that one. Yeah, yeah. It's an interesting angle. Yeah, he's the where's Waldo of evil villains. He's the where's the where's Waldo of evil pedophiles. Kilroy? Yeah, he's a Kilroy type deal. Well, no one knows.

Kilroy was here was like an early meme, but we don't really know, like, Like, why? Like what it was about. Yeah. Oh, man. Mm-hmm. Well. Well.

Well, more next week for folks. Wow. Sophie, I do have to say 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 Lichtenen is an anagram for both AI police. Thresher and America's Hitler phone. Is this actually in the suburb? That's strong evidence, Sophie. I don't know. I haven't double-checked. This could just be a lie. Probably is a lie.

I don't know. I've done no word. That is my favorite part about conspiracy theorists in general is the amount of time they think people doing evil stuff spend anagramming. The amount of importance anagrams have to the global pedophile elite is really funny. Like, now that we see the actual correspondence of the global pedophile. They can't spell the first time. They can't fucking spell these words.

How are they going to do it at a graham? Yeah. They can't. Jeffrey Epstein could barely use a keyboard. This is actually on the subreddit. I thought you were just, there's 43 comments. Come on, guys. I know so.

I'm sorry. I thought it was funny. God. Good stuff. Andrew, did you plug your plugables yet? Sure did. Starter track. I don't know.

Thanks for having me. This is, I won't, I cannot in good conscience say it's, fun to be here, but it is certainly illuminating. But you are here. I have a plugable. Touch grass. You know what? I should actually say solidarity and snacks is the mutual aid crew that I run with out here in Los Angeles. They're great folks. Solidarity and snacks. You can find them. Okay. All right, everybody. This has been Behind the Bastards, a podcast that you just listened to. Shame on you. Behind the Bastards is a production. of CoolZone Media. For more from CoolZone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the IHeart

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And immediately, the mask came off. You're supposed to be safe. That's your home. That's your husband. Listen to Betrayal Season 5 on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Over the last couple years, didn't we learn that the folding chair was invented by black people because of what happened in Alabama? After Montgomery Bra. This Black History Month, the podcast Selective Ignorance with Mandy B, unpacks black history and culture with comedy, clarity, and conversations that shake the status quo.

The Crown Act in New York was signed in July of 2019, and that is a bill that was passed to prohibit discrimination based on hair styles associated with race. To hear this and more, listen to Selective Ignorance with Mandy B from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. 1969, Malcolm and Martin are gone. America is in crisis. And at Morehouse College, the students make their move. These students, including a young Samuel L. Jackson, locked up the members of the Board of Trustees,

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