- Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss twins have a fortune in Bitcoin of $1 billion and also own a huge stake in Ethereum.
- The Winklevoss twins are bullish for Ethereum due to the potential of the DeFi sector.
In an interview for The Defiant with Camila Russo, twins Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss talked about stablecoins, the impact of the pandemic (Covid-19), the Federal Reserve’s inflationary policy and the future of Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Recognized for their involvement in the creation of Facebook and its transformation to crypto space, the Winklevoss twins founded the Gemini exchange. As Russo states in the above-mentioned interview, the Winklevoss brothers bought Bitcoin and Ethereum in the still young history of cryptocurrencies and are ‘hodling’ till today.
Billionaires in Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH)
In that sense, Tyler and Cameron decided to invest a significant amount of their fortune in Bitcoin. The Winklevosses are part of the early investors who managed to accumulate about 0.7% of the total Bitcoin supply in circulation. This occurred in 2013, long before Bitcoin reached its all-time high of $20,000. Currently their fortunes are estimated at around $1 billion in BTC, or about 120,000 BTC.
They said in the interview, that they are one of the biggest Bitcoin whales, but that they are early investors of Ethereum too. The Winklevosses said they have been making an effort over the past years to accumulate ETH. Although they did not give an exact amount of their funds in ETH, it can be speculated that the Winklevosses might own about 1% of the total supply, according to what they told Russo:
The Bitcoin billionaires said they their ETH holdings are “sizable” and “in the same galaxy” as their BTC holdings.
The Winklevosses stated that their funds in ETH are significant:
We definitely own a lot of ether. They’re large and it’s a material amount. Yeah, quite large (…) A couple of years back we made a concerted effort to buy a lot of ether.
Tyler said that the DeFi sector will be the most important boost for the crypto ecosystem. The Winklevosses added that the DeFi sector represents their vision of crypto space. Cryptocurrencies, said Cameron Winklevoss, offer people greater freedom, choice and opportunity. That, Cameron said, is what makes cryptocurrencies exciting:
I think DeFi is a new vista, a new type of system for which Bitcoin paved the way, it was sort of the blueprint for decentralization. Like, this is what’s possible. You can take something that’s centralized and make it decentral. Bitcoin was the starting point.
However, the Winklevosses stressed that it is still too early to determine how the DeFi sector will evolve, but they gave a hint as to what the first step towards its development might be:
But it’s earlier and so it’s harder to say how necessarily it will evolve, but I think the first step is creating a safe way for people to get into that system through Dai, for example, which is a fundamental building block.
You know about the Winklevoss twins' connection to the social* network.
But did u know they're whales in crypto's financial* network?🤑
"We're big fans of ether. We have a material amount. It's safe to say, material by any person’s standard."
Interview:https://t.co/pVRMjVQwmH
— Camila Russo (@CamiRusso) May 22, 2020
