The Winklevoss brothers printed out private keys for bitcoin wallets and shared each key for different repositories.

In early December 2017, the names of the first official bitcoin billionaires who do not hide the fact of their condition became known . They were the twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, well known to everyone who watched the film "Social Network" about the history of the creation of Facebook. In the film, the rowing brothers (members of the Olympic Games in rowing) from Harvard are not shown in a very favorable light, but in fact they are quite advanced guys.



The brothers started buying bitcoins in 2012, when they cost less than $ 10. But they made the main investment in 2013, having bought about 120,000 BTC (1% of the whole issue). For this investment, they used several million of the $ 65 million received in the lawsuit against the company Facebook (which copied their idea of ​​the social network ConnectU). Consideration of the claim took place in 2008, but the brothers forced the plaintiff to pay the world not in money but in shares. So they were able to get money only after Facebook’s IPO. Even then, the foresight of the Harvard athletes was apparent.



In those days, Bitcoin was known primarily as the currency for the anonymous purchase of drugs on the darknet. Everyone laughed at Winklevoss - they became an almost nominal name for ridiculous investments in the financial American establishment. They say that the guys succumbed to "tulipmania" when the rate rose from $ 10 to $ 120.



Now the voices of critics have quietly subsided, since the price of “digital gold” has been rising for the eighth year according to Moore’s law, to which many technologies are subject. Now it ranges from $ 16,000 to $ 19,000, although the last jump from $ 1,000 in early 2017 has become particularly large.



In 2013, thanks to such an investment, the brothers became the first Bitcoin millionaires . And now billionaires. The NY Times devoted a large article to the Winklevoss, which revealed some interesting details about them. Including how investors protect their investments.



In particular, they use a system of cold wallets for storing bitcoins, that is, offline data storage. They printed the private keys of the wallets, divided them into two parts, and placed the sealed envelopes in depositary cells throughout the country.





One of two fragments of the secret key for one of the wallets



It turns out that after 2013, the brothers still invested a round sum in other cryptocurrencies, mainly in Ethereum. The total value of their Altcoin portfolio is about $ 350 million. And of course, they are the main owners of the Gemini cryptocurrency they themselves have founded.



Winklevoss live in an apartment in Manhattan in fairly spartan conditions without luxury - and they have sold almost nothing of their digital assets, which are now valued at more than $ 2 billion. One of the twins has an SUV, the other has no car.



The brothers gained technical knowledge about Bitcoin technology thanks to the managers of Bitinstant, in which they also invested. Bitinstant techies literally taught them everything. They managed to do this before the director of the company was put in prison in 2014 for involvement in the drug trade for bitcoins (the services of the service used by clients of drag dealer).



Now, it is unlikely that anyone will laugh at Bitcoin investments made in 2012-2013. "We turned these ridicule into oxygen and a fair wind," said the Winklowoss brothers in an interview with the NY Times .



The brothers are also a good example and proof that all investments in Bitcoin made in 2017 will always look relatively modest against the background of investments made five years ago. And even more so against the background of the state of the semi-mythical Satoshi Nakamoto - the inventor of Bitcoin and the developer of the first software version, who namainil 980,000 BTC during the testing of the first client version. Now his fortune is estimated at $ 17-19 billion, depending on the course of Bitcoin, and he is among the 50 richest people in the world .



Winklevoss believe that Bitcoin is now the best option for investing money - and will remain so for many years. They say that the value of bitcoins in circulation, in theory, should approach the value of the existing gold, that is, approximately $ 7-8 trillion. And it can even exceed it, given that in some respects bitcoin is better than gold as a rare commodity. At the same time, Winklevoss are ready for a crash course, but it is better to live with disappointment from losing money than to bite your elbows from a lost opportunity.