Comment by backscratches

Your last line is incorrect (by your own earlier descrdption of BTC):

> had Epstein used BTC every single one of his clients would be known

Had Epstein used BTC And we discovered his BTC address(es) we would know what BTC addresses he sent BTC to. Simply by knowing his BTC address(es) alone we would not know anything about who he sent BTC to except the addresses he sent to. And if we know only one of Epstein's addresses and only one of the people associated with one of the recipient addresses, this would not necessarily give us any information about any of the other parties involved. With opsec BTC retains the quality of pseudoanonymity (a technical term). Epstein, who is known for laundering money, likely could have converted cash to BTC without connecting his identity to the addresses many times over.

I would be very surprised to learn that pre-BTC online black markets had equivalent volume as modern cryptocurrency markets.