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The Winklevoss twins, who are also Olympic rowers, are best known for suing Mark Zuckerberg in 2007, alleging that he had stolen the Facebook idea for their website, ConnectU, when they were together at Harvard.
Zuckerberg finally agreed to a settlement of $20 million in cash and $45 million in stock to end the “spiteful legislation” dramatized in the award-winning film The Social Network.
But he always maintained that Facebook did not steal the idea. In January 2011, the twins tried to reopen the deal, claiming it was unfair because Facebook withheld the actual value of their shares, even though their deal at the time was worth $160 million.
A third classmate, Divya Narendra, was part of the deal with the twins, but did not join them in trying to undo the deal.
In April 2011, the twins’ case was thrown out, with the judges saying they were smart enough to understand what they were agreeing to when they signed the agreement with Zuckerberg in 2008.
Lawsuit: The Winklevoss twins leave US District Court in Boston in 2007, following a court hearing on the lawsuit against Facebook.
The twins’ legal claims were made famous by The Social Network, in which they were played by an actor, Armie Hammer (pictured above in the role).
The twins got a taste of their own medicine in May 2011 after a Massachusetts judge ruled that a software developer could sue them for part of their $65 million Facebook settlement.
Wayne Chang claimed he was entitled to receive up to half of the money because he developed peer-to-peer file-sharing software for his website, ConnectU, and signed a contract giving him joint ownership.
He claimed that the brothers prevented him from receiving the cash owed to him. He developed his i2hub file-sharing software around the same time the brothers were working at ConnectU with business partner Divya Narendra and, at least initially, Zuckerberg.
In the lawsuit, the developer claimed that its 50 percent stake in Winklevoss Chang Group meant it was entitled to half of the $65 million deal, or else it was owed 15 percent due to the memorandum of understanding.
After nearly a decade of disputes, a Massachusetts appeals court ruled in April 2019 that Chang was not entitled to any of the $65 million raised by the twins.
The twins got a taste of their own medicine in May 2011 after a judge ruled that software developer Wayne Chang could sue them for part of his $65 million Facebook settlement.
The couple was revealed in July 2013. who owned about one percent of Bitcoins, which was equivalent to about $11 million.
In March 2014, the twins used Bitcoin to purchase tickets for Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo rocket plane, which is valued at $250,000 each, as passengers 700 and 701.
Tyler wrote in a blog at the time: ‘Cameron and I look back on our tickets to space, as seed money backing a new technology that may forever change the way we travel.
“Acquired with a new technology that may forever change the way we transact.”
In March 2014, the twins used Bitcoin to buy tickets for Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo rocket plane, which are valued at $250,000 each.
Hukkster, a fashion retailer financed with the help of the twins, closed after nearly two and a half years in the summer of 2014.
The twins invested $1 million in the startup, allowing its users to tag the items they wanted from online retailers and receive alerts when the items went on sale.
If a purchase was made, Hukkster earned a small percentage.
According to LinkedIn, they had 25 employees at the time of their closure.
A Gemini announcement in 2019
In January 2015, the twins spoke about their hopes of bringing Bitcoin mainstream by creating the first regulated Bitcoin ETF in the United States.
They called their project the ‘Nasdaq of Bitcoin’ and hired engineers from major hedge funds, enlisted a bank and involved regulators with the goal of opening their own exchange.
In May 2016, the state of New York approved the Gemini Trust Company’s application to trade digital currency ether on its bitcoin exchange.
At the time, Cameron revealed that his investment firm, Winklevoss Capital, was a “significant” holder of Ether.
Cameron and Tyler at the 2016 Met Gala, the same year they launched Gemini
In 2017, the Winklevosses became the world’s first Bitcoin billionaires.
Them invested early on in Bitcoin and their purchase allowed them to control almost 1 percent of bitcoins.
It is unclear when exactly they invested in the cryptocurrency and trading fluctuates.
It was trading for less than $250 for most of 2017 and then dipped as low as $150 for several months.
Fortune reported that the twins bought the coin at $120, which would have netted them approximately 91,666 bitcoins.
The brothers were said not to have sold a single one of their bitcoins as they saw their value rise.
At one point in December 2017, one coin was valued at $11,413.46, bringing the value of your investment to $1.046 billion.
Some of the world’s cryptocurrency billionaires saw billions wiped from their fortunes in May 2022 as digital currencies fell in value on fears of the broader global economy.
The Winklevosses reportedly lost around half their wealth, up to $2.2 billion from around $4.5 billion, and were forced to lay off about 10 percent of the staff at their startup during this time.
After the accident, a video of the twins singing Journey’s hit song ‘Don’t Stop Believin’ went viral.
The US CFTC filed a federal lawsuit in New York in June 2022 accusing Gemini Trust Co of making false and misleading statements
The US CFTC filed a federal lawsuit in New York in June 2022 accusing Gemini Trust Co of making false and misleading statements about a bitcoin futures contract the company was pursuing in 2017.
The agency contended that Gemini violated federal commodity laws and is seeking civil penalties and other remedies.
Gemini officials “knew or reasonably should have known that the statements and information transmitted or omitted” by the company were false or misleading regarding how a proposed bitcoin futures contract could be susceptible to manipulation, according to the filing.
“We have an eight-year track record of asking for permission, not forgiveness, and always doing the right thing. We look forward to definitively testing this in court,” Gemini said in a statement.
The CFTC filing noted that Gemini’s proposed bitcoin futures contract was particularly significant because it was to be one of the first digital asset futures contracts to trade on a designated contract exchange.
Now the twins face increased scrutiny with their dealings with Gemini amid a lawsuit from the SEC and clients who allege they were misled by the company when it loaned $900 million to Genesis.