Bitcoin, the original digital currency of the world wide web, has spawned its first billionaires, the Winklevoss twins. After Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss won a multi-million dollar lawsuit against Facebook—they claimed their old college pal Mark Zuckerberg had stolen the idea for a social network, as made famous by the moviee The Social Network—they invested heavily in the then-budding cryptocurrency. In 2013, they revealed their investment was worth almost $11 million.
On Sunday, Bitcoin hit a record high of $11,826.76 per coin, which would put the Winklevii investment at over $1 billion—the Telegraph reports that the twins never sold a single coin of what they initially put in.
Bitcoin's value has been skyrocketing in the past years, rising 1,000 percent this year alone, according Business Insider. The twins foresaw that rise back in 2013 when most people were incredibly wary of digital currencies. "People say it's a Ponzi scheme, it's a bubble," Cameron Winklevoss told The New York Times. "People really don't want to take it seriously. At some point that narrative will shift to 'virtual currencies are here to stay.' We're in the early days."
If you're interested but don't have the cashflow to buy into Bitcoin, Ethereum is generating a lot of buzz. Litecoin, too. So yeah, looks like virtual currencies are here to stay.
