Beautiful Virgin Islands

Monday, Oct 06, 2025

Winklevoss twins slam Facebook as their crypto business booms

Winklevoss twins slam Facebook as their crypto business booms

Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss waged a famous legal battle against Mark Zuckerberg over Facebook’s beginnings. Now, they’re predicting the social network’s demise.

The Harvard-educated twins — who were portrayed by Armie Hammer as losers in the 2010 flick “The Social Network” — have since become billionaires thanks to their bold investments in Bitcoin and other controversial cryptocurrencies.

Emboldened by surging prices for digital money as big companies from Tesla to Goldman Sachs embrace it, the pair are now upping the ante, claiming that “centralized” social networks like Facebook aren’t long for this world.

“The idea of a centralized social network is just not going to exist five or 10 years in the future,” Tyler Winklevoss told Forbes in a Monday profile when asked about Facebook. “There’s a membrane or a chasm between the old world and this new crypto-native universe. And we’re the conduit helping people transcend the offline into the online.”

The 39-year-old twins known as the “Winklevii” have filled their portfolio with startups trying to decentralize services dominated by tech titans like Facebook, Microsoft and Google alongside a digital art platform that at the center of the recent NFT craze, according to Forbes.

The twins reportedly entered that universe nearly a decade ago after winning a $65 million settlement in their legal battle with Zuckerberg, whom they accused of stealing their idea for a social network.

They started buying bitcoin in 2012 after getting a tip from some “early adopters” on the Mediterranean party island of Ibiza, Forbes says. Now, Bitcoin and the so-called blockchain technology behind it power a business empire that gave them a combined net worth of more than $6 billion last month, the outlet reports.

One of their biggest successes is Nifty Gateway, which has helped fuel the explosion in the market for non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, digital assets whose ownership is stored on a blockchain ledger.

The platform has seen an explosion of interests in its “drops” of NFTs from artists such as Beeple, who just sold a token at the Christie’s auction house for $69 million, according to Forbes.

“We’re doing $4 million in five minutes now” for releases that would have fetched $50,000 a year ago, Cameron Winklevoss told Forbes.

Nifty Gateway was bought in 2019 by Gemini, the Winklevii’s cryptocurrency exchange that shares its name with NASA’s second space mission. The twins are so dedicated to the space-exploration theme that they call Gemini’s employees “astronauts,” they told Forbes.

Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
FBI Removes Agents Who Kneeled at 2020 Protest, Citing Breach of Professional Conduct
Trump Alleges ‘Triple Sabotage’ at United Nations After Escalator and Teleprompter Failures
Shock in France: 5 Years in Prison for Former President Nicolas Sarkozy
Tokyo’s Jimbōchō Named World’s Coolest Neighbourhood for 2025
European Officials Fear Trump May Shift Blame for Ukraine War onto EU
BNP Paribas Abandons Ban on 'Controversial Weapons' Financing Amid Europe’s Defence Push
Typhoon Ragasa Leaves Trail of Destruction Across East Asia Before Making Landfall in China
The Personality Rights Challenge in India’s AI Era
Big Banks Rebuild in Hong Kong as Deal Volume Surges
Italy Considers Freezing Retirement Age at 67 to Avert Scheduled Hike
Italian City to Impose Tax on Visiting Dogs Starting in 2026
Arnault Denounces Proposed Wealth Tax as Threat to French Economy
Study Finds No Safe Level of Alcohol for Dementia Risk
Denmark Investigates Drone Incursion, Does Not Rule Out Russian Involvement
Lilly CEO Warns UK Is ‘Worst Country in Europe’ for Drug Prices, Pulls Back Investment
Nigel Farage Emerges as Central Force in British Politics with Reform UK Surge
Disney Reinstates ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ after Six-Day Suspension over Charlie Kirk Comments
U.S. Prosecutors Move to Break Up Google’s Advertising Monopoly
×