His "admission" was very, very weak.

    "I am no longer involved in that and I cannot discuss it," he says, dismissing all further queries with a swat of his left hand. "It's been turned over to other people. They are in charge of it now. I no longer have any connection."

For all we know he was confused and thought she was talking about his previous, possibly classified, work.

Given that he did not really admit to it, but that the journalist chose a quote where there were only pronouns and not the word "BitCoin," my guess would be that this is not the tactic that he employed. It would rely too much on the reporter exactly quoting ambiguous phrasing and also giving it the desired interpretation.