The Winklevoss Twins Net Worth, Bitcoin Holdings, Olympic Medals, and Personal Life

Winklevoss Twins Biography

Educational Background of Winklevoss Twins

Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss were born to Carol and Howard Winklevoss in Southampton, New York. Their father was an author and professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. They attended Greenwich Country Day School and Brunswick School for early education.

In these identical twin brothers, Cameron is left-handed and Tyler is right-handed. They both are best at teamwork from their childhood which helped them in their careers as well. They both studied classical music in their childhood and learned Latin and Ancient Greek.

Later, the Winklevoss brothers graduated from Harvard university with a major in economics and also earned Bachelor of Arts degree in 2004. While studying at Harvard, both were members of the men’s varsity crew, Hasty Pudding Club, and the Porcellian Club. The Winklevoss twins continued their studies and graduated from the University of Oxford by completing MBA degree.

Early Career of the Winklevoss Twins

The Winklevoss twins followed the same career path since their graduation to this day. During their study at Harvard, the Winklevoss brothers along with their classmate Divya Narendra came up with an idea to connect fellow students at Harvard University.

The three friends named the platform HarvardConnection, which later became ConnectU. Their main goal was to help their fellow students to connect at Harvard University, which also expanded to other US schools.

The Winklevoss twins and Divya Narendra approached another Harvard student, Sanjay Mavinkurve because he is a programmer. When Mavinkurve left the project after working for a few months, they onboarded Victor Gao to work on HarvardConnection.

However, he also left the project after working for a few more months. Based on the recommendation of Victor Gao, the Winklevoss twins reached out to Mark Zuckerberg to help them build the platform.

By that time, most of the back-end coding work was done by previous programmers. Mark Zuckerberg kept postponing the work while behind the scenes he was trying to build Facebook with the similar idea and functionality.

When Winklevoss and Narendra first learned about Facebook in 2004, they took the matter to the Harvard Administrative Board. But, eventually they took it in their own hands and filed a lawsuit against Mark Zuckerberg.

Facebook Lawsuit

Mark Zuckerberg was accused of copying the source code of ConnectU and was facing a lawsuit for it. In response, the Facebook counter sued a project, The Winklevoss Chang Group, built by Winklevoss brother, Narendra, and others. Both of these cases reached an agreement and Mark paid $65 million to the Winklevoss brothers to settle the case.

Bitcoin Investment of the Winklevoss Twins

After the Facebook lawsuit was settled, they used the $65 million to stockpile Bitcoin and invest in other ventures through their Winklevoss Capital company. They are the early adopters of Bitcoin when the cryptocurrency was not as popular as today.

The Winklevoss brothers bought $11 million worth of Bitcoin when each coin was trading at just $120. This move made them own 1% of all the Bitcoin that existed by that time.

Founders of Gemini Crypto Exchange

The Winklevoss brothers believed in the potential of cryptocurrencies and eventually started Gemini crypto exchange. Tyler Winklevoss expressed his support in regulating cryptocurrencies so that they can bring this asset class close to retail investors.

Despite the market’s condition in 2018, the crypto exchange continued to grow and became one of the secure crypto exchanges in the US.

As the Bitcoin’s value rose, the twin brothers became early Bitcoin billionaires in the industry. Later, Gemini started Nifty Gateaway NFT marketplace in 2018 but it experienced some security issues. They expanded their services on Gemini with more features like Gemini Earn. The platform promised returns as high as 7.4% for depositing crypto.

However, like any other crypto company, Gemini has also experienced the impact of bear market in 2021 and 2022. The company had to lay off around 10% of its workforce and their sister company, Genesis Global capital stopped issuing redemptions for funds after the FTX debacle.

By the end of 2022, investors filed a lawsuit on the Winklevoss brothers for not returning the interest on their crypto deposits. Gemini terminated the Gemini Earn features in Jan, 2023 and the twin brothers lent $100 million of their personal funds to resurrect the platform and pay the users.

From Rowing at university to Rowing in Olympics

The Winklevoss twins started rowing in their teenage years and continued the sport in university as well. They trained under coach Harry Parker while studying at Harvard University.

The twin brothers were on the Harvard men’s varsity crew, which was nicknamed “God Squad”. Having a sweep rowing discipline, both of them helped their team win the Eastern Sprints, the Intercollegiate Rowing Association.

The team was placed 6th by defeating British and French Olympic eight boats in the Lucerne Rowing World Cup. They continued to win several games with the university team while studying at Harvard.

Later in 2007, the team participated in the Pan American Games and won a gold and a silver medal. The duo also rowed at 2008 Beijing Olympics and reached the finals but they ended up finishing only 6 countries out of fourteen that were participating in Olympics that year.

Winklevoss Twins’ Net Worth

The net worth of Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss is $1.4 billion as of February 2024, according to Forbes. Most of their wealth comes from the popular Gemini crypto exchange.

During the crypto bull market, when the exchange had a good reputation, it even reached a $7 billion dollar valuation. As they invested in Bitcoin early, they are popularly known as the “Bitcoin Billionaires”. Additionally, they also invested in various blockchain and crypto related companies like Xapo and 21.