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- Cameron Winklevoss has called out Barry Silbert of DCG for stalling the debt crisis at Genesis.
- The community looks to a speedy resolution between the trio of Gemini, Genesis, and DCG.
There is a current tug-of-war between Cameron Winklevoss, the iconic co-founder of the Gemini Trading platform, and Barry Silbert, the founder of the Digital Currency Group (DCG). The origin of both veterans’ spat dates back to the business relationship between Genesis, the crypto broker subsidiary of DCG which was the lending partner to the Earn product on offer by Gemini exchange.
Amid the bankruptcy filing of FTX Derivatives Exchange, Genesis was placed in a liquidity crisis that saw it halt its withdrawals, locking as much as $900 million belonging to Gemini Earn customers. In an open letter to Barry Silbert, Cameron said the attempts to get a working resolution for the past 6 weeks have been staled by Silbert and his companies.
We appreciate that there are startup costs to any restructuring, and at times things don’t go as fast as we would all like,” Winklevoss wrote in the letter shared on Twitter. “However, it is now becoming clear that you have been engaging in bad faith stall tactics.
As detailed by Cameron, Silbert has yet to agree to specific timelines as efforts to get him to sit at the negotiation table have been more or less fruitless. With over $1.6 billion in outstanding deficit owed by Genesis, the crypto broker has more creditors than just Gemini, but the exchange is under much pressure as its Earn customers had filed a class action lawsuit against it.
Cameron Winklevoss reminds Silbert that the Genesis problem is not a standalone one and that he cannot continue to turn a blind eye to the obvious crisis that needs resolving.
“After six weeks, your behavior is not only completely unacceptable, it is unconscionable,” Winklevoss added. “The idea in your head that you can quietly hide in your ivory tower and that this will all just magically go away, or that this is someone else’s problem, is pure fantasy.”
Silbert’s Counterclaims
With Twitter coming off as one of the most powerful communication channels in the digital currency world, Barry Silbert was forced to respond to the open letter from Cameron calling him out. In his own defense, Silbert said DCG has not made any attempt to sabotage the ongoing resolution of the loan crisis at Genesis and that the firm has sent a proposal to both Gemini and Genesis that remains unanswered.
“DCG did not borrow $1.675 billion from Genesis. DCG has never missed an interest payment to Genesis and is current on all loans outstanding; next loan maturity is May 2023,” Silbert tweeted at Winklevoss. “DCG delivered to Genesis and your advisors a proposal on December 29th and has not received any response.”
To Cameron, all he wanted was a speedy resolution and he asked if Silbert can publicly commit to resolving the issue by January 8.
The direct confrontation between Cameron on behalf of Gemini Earn and Barry Silbert is just one of many known infractions that the implosions experienced over the past year have stirred. In the case of FTX, both creditors owed and investors are anticipating a speedy resolution of the bankruptcy proceedings, a process that is currently being complicated with both the US and Bahamian authorities at loggerheads.
