Ripple and Stellar were drawn into a new wave of social media speculation over the weekend after new emails stemming from the release of Epstein’s document appeared to reference the two projects in a 2014 investor dispute. Former Ripple CTO David Schwartz hit back publicly, saying he knew of no direct connection between Epstein and either network, and presented the episode as another example of tribal politics spilling over. in cryptography.
Schwartz Reacts After Epstein Docs Mentions Ripple, Stellar
The spark came from a screenshot circulating on According to Schwartz, the document “is an email from Austin Hill to Jeffrey Epstein explaining that Hill felt that supporting Ripple or Stellar made someone an enemy/adversary,” adding that Hill likely shared similar views “with many other people.”
As the image spread, some articles called the mere inclusion of Ripple and Stellar in the email evidence of deeper involvement. Schwartz responded with a post that attempted to separate the inflammatory framing from what the document actually shows.
“I know of no connection between Jeffrey Epstein and Ripple, XRP or Stellar. (I know of) no evidence that anyone at Ripple or Stellar ever met Epstein or anyone closely associated with him,” he wrote. “There are indirect connections between Epstein and people connected to Bitcoin in various ways, but this is probably the case for most very wealthy people.”
Schwartz’s first post on the thread captured the mood of the day, both suspicion and reluctance to fuel it. “I hate to be a conspiracy theorist, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this was just the tip of a giant iceberg,” he wrote, linking to the DOJ-hosted file. He then argued that the most corrosive problem was the “enemy/adversary” mindset, writing that “we really are all in this together and this kind of attitude hurts everyone in space.”
In the underlying 2014 email described in the source document, Hill is described as opposing backers funding multiple “horses” at once, treating support for Ripple or Stellar as hostile to the bitcoin-centric “ecosystem” he was building at Blockstream. Reports summarizing the channel say it was sent to Joichi Ito, Epstein and Reid Hoffman, and included information that investors from both camps were “backing two horses in the same race.”
The resurfaced email also reignited an old fault line in the way early projects were structured. In response to a user who asked him about Ripple’s non-profit stance compared to Stellar, Schwartz said the idea was discussed from the start and he opposed it.
“We discussed it at first. I was strongly opposed to it because it seemed dishonest and almost illegal to have a nonprofit whose success was so tied to the winnings of private parties,” he wrote. “It seemed, at least to me, like Walmart was creating a nonprofit to help educate people about how much money they could save by shopping at Walmart.”
At press time, XRP was trading at $1.64.
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