7 Things You Should Know About World's 1st Official Bitcoin Billionaires, The Winklevoss Twins
The "Internet entrepreneur brothers" are the first high profile investors to reap rewards of more than a billion dollars from the cryptocurrency.
While Bitcoins are currently making a lot of people rich, some are getting much richer than others. Particularly some like the notorious Winklevoss twins.
The two brothers, known for suing Mark Zuckerberg, who they claim stole their idea for Facebook years ago, just became the first Bitcoin billionaires thanks to the cryptocurrency shooting through an all-time high valuation of US $11,400 for each bitcoin. So here are a few things you need to know about the Winklevoss duo.
Reuters
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1. Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss (born Aug 21, 1981) considered themselves Internet entrepreneurs, while attending Harvard between 2000 to 2004. They say they had the first idea for a Facebook-like social network called ¡®Harvard Connect¡¯, an idea they later sued Zuckerberg for stealing later in 2004.
2. The two eventually won a $65 million payout from Facebook in 2008. In March 2013, they used $11 million of that to buy a huge cache of Bitcoin.
3. As part of a risky bet on the fledgling company, the Winklevii bought around 100,000 bitcoins roughly one percent of the entire world¡¯s finite supply. At the time, each coin was worth $120.
4. The Winklevoss brothers were champion rowers, even competing on behalf of the US at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
5. When Bitcoin¡¯s value grew to a staggering $11,395 last week, the two became the first high profile Bitcoin billionaires in the world. The only other known Bitcoin wallet with that amount belongs to the mysterious faceless creator of the cryptocurrency, Satoshi Nakamoto.
6. The twins have reportedly never sold any part of their Bitcoin hoard, instead reportedly preferring to hold out in the hopes of launching an exchange-traded fund in New York.
7. In March 2014 the twins reportedly purchased seats on the first flight of Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic shuttle using their Bitcoin profits.
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