The Winklevoss twins could be the world’s richest celebrity Bitcoin holders, with their 1% BTC share now worth over 1 Billion USD.
The Winklevoss twins, infamous for their legal feud with Mark Zuckerberg over his alleged stealing of their original idea for the Facebook social network, could rank as the world’s richest Bitcoin investors.
As Bitcoin touches $100 billion in value, don't forget that the Winklevoss twins are officially Bitcoin billionaires (1% BTC supply)
— Sid Kalla (@sidkal) October 30, 2017
$1 Billion
If the Winklevoss twins have kept all of their initial investment since buying what they claimed was to be 1% of the total supply (120,000 BTC) of Bitcoin back in 2013, then their investment could now be worth north of $1 billion USD. During an interview at the end of 2013, they stated that they have not sold any of their Bitcoins and that they keep their wallets in various safes around the world on USB drives.
The Winklevoss twins announced in a Reddit AMA:
We first learned about Bitcoin in 2012. Perhaps where you’d least expect — on an island off the coast of Spain in the middle of August. Our first impression was that this was either going to be really big or a complete zero. We were immediately taken in by Bitcoin’s elegance and enormous promise, and as we started to learn more, we became convinced that Bitcoin was the future of money.
The Gemini Exchange
Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss launched their Gemini Bitcoin exchange in 2015;
We began buying bitcoin, but quickly realized that there was no safe and easy way to buy and sell bitcoin in the US! So, a year and a half ago, we decided to do something about it. We began assembling a team of top engineers to build Gemini.
Since then they have tried to pass a Bitcoin ETF, which has so far met with resistance as a number of other such ETF applications having also been rejected in the US. However, hopes are still high that one will eventually pass. Reasons presented by the SEC board for the application rejection particularly pointed out the fact that Bitcoin has too few regulations. The pair also established their own index which tracks the price of Bitcoin across multiple exchanges as well as contributing funding to Bitcoin and blockchain companies under their company Winklevoss Capital.
Other known Members of the Bitcoin Rich List
Other known people on the Bitcoin richest list would include Tony Gallippi (co-founder of the Bitpay payment processing company), Charlie Shrem (an early Bitcoin adopter possessing a few thousand BTC back when they were worth very little), Tim Draper (venture capitalist), and Barry Silbert (venture capitalist who reportedly bought 48,000 Bitcoins in a U.S Marshal’s auction selling seized coins from the Silk Road online marketplace). Ultimately the largest owner of Bitcoin is Bitcoin’s absent, and mysterious, creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, who now controls over a $6 billion portion of the coins with his initial 1 Million BTC.
Do you think the Winklevoss twins are worth as much as is speculated? As always, let us know what you think in the comments below.
Images Courtesy of Bitcoinist archives and Wikimedia Commons.
The Rundown
