We’re twins who rowed in The Boat Race for Oxford – now we’re worth £5BILLION after suing Facebook and buying Bitcoin
THE Winklevoss twins are renowned for their rowing royalty status among fans of the annual Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race.
But they were also at the centre of one of the biggest legal battles of the 21st century.
In 2004, Cameron and Tyler’s social media website, ConnectU, filed a lawsuit against Facebook alleging that creator Mark Zuckerberg had broken a verbal contract with them.
The twins had originally asked Zuckerberg to help expand the site from Harvard to other universities, but they later claimed that he had copied their idea to make his own website.
Eventually, in 2008, both parties reached a settlement that saw the Winklevoss brothers paid a whopping £51MILLION.
And the following year they enrolled at the University of Oxford to obtain an MBA (Master of Business Administration).
During their time at Oxford, the twins took part in the 156th Boat Race but lost to Cambridge.
Speaking to The Guardian before the race, Tyler said: “Even though we have rowed at Harvard and the Olympics this is a unique challenge.
“On one of our very first days when we tried rowing our coach, James Mangan, showed us a video of the Boat Race. That was part of the impetus for us to start rowing.”
The twins started rowing at the age of 15 and went on to compete during their time at Harvard University.
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They also represented the United States at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, finishing sixth in the final as a pair.
Cameron and Tyler, 42, used some of their Facebook settlement to make a huge gamble on Bitcoin, which has seen their combined net worth balloon to a staggering $5BILLION.
They spent around $11m (£8.19m) buying the cryptocurrency in 2013 when it was valued at just $120 (£90).
Today, one BTC is worth a staggering $70,000 (£55,000) – the twins still hold an estimated 70,000 BTC with a total value of around £3.5billion.
They are also founders of cryptocurrency exchange Gemini, which processes around $60m of trades daily and has over 10 million users.
Gemini now sponsors the Boat Race and was the first company do so.
They also invest in gaming and fintech start-ups through their venture capital firm Winklevoss Capital Management.