The Twins
This book has been my evening lecture for the past two weeks. It’s about Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, two twins who came to glory twice. Being Harvard Alummi and really successful sportsmen, they always had a desire to succeed.
The Story
First thing they tried was the idea to a social media site back in the early days but they had no programming skills. They met and hired a young guy on campus at Harvard, Mark Zuckerberg, who, to make a long story short, stole their idea and founded his own social media platform: Facebook.
The Twins sued him for stealing their idea but weren’t really successful with it. They „lost by winning“ was a wording that I found very good in this context.
But they didn’t buckle down and searched for something new where to make a change and found Bitcoin back in 2012. By chance but they obviously did their homework and quickly understood, that this could be a game changer for the whole world of finance. In consequence they invested heavily in the cryptocurrency and used their contacts to educate people, VC and Wall Street, about this new technology. They went to conferences and spoke to influential people they knew about the concept of Bitcoin, trying to educate more than to influence investments. They also brought the saying „not your keys, not your coins“ to the extreme, but I don’t want to spoil to much…
When Bitcoin reached $10.000 they became the first known Bitcoin Billionaires.
Why I liked the book
For me it was really surprising to learn about these two guys from a different angle. I had seen the movie about Facebook „The Social Network“ and obviously the Twins had their part there. Mainly reduced to the two a bit dumb guys, who claimed to have had the idea about Facebook. But I didn’t know about their early Bitcoin engagement and how smart and dedicated they are. What I found especially impressive was how clearly they had already envisioned the future of Bitcoin more than a decade ago and how consequently they invested their money accordingly. That was high risk they took. And they also saw back then already, that mainstream adoption needed some regulation and filed for a Bitcoin ETF in 2013! That was a decade (!) ahead of Blackrock and all the others.
For me the Winklevoss brothers are true pioneers of Bitcoin and I found their story both fascinating and inspiring. You also learn a lot about the early days with topics like Silk Road or Mt. Gox. Only thing that was a bit annoying sometimes, was the fact that the font of the paperback is quite small. But that’s a detail in the end.
In summary I can really recommend the book if you like to read a gripping story of entrepreneurship in the world of crypto and learn about the beginnings of Bitcoin.
