Winklevoss Twins Withdraw Over $280 Million Months Before Their Crypto Firm's Collapse, Court Documents Reveal
Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss faced scrutiny over transactions made right before their firm's collapse.
Sept. 28 2023, Published 2:30 p.m. ET
Twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss quietly withdrew over $280 million from their cryptocurrency firm months before the company collapsed, RadarOnline.com has learned.
Cameron and Tyler are best known for accusing former Harvard classmate Mark Zuckerberg of stealing their idea for Facebook in a 2004 lawsuit. After settling the legal battle for $65 million in 2008, the twins invested in Bitcoin and co-founded cryptocurrency firm Genesis.
Twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss sued Mark Zuckerberg and claimed he stole their idea for Facebook.
Genesis — like many cryptocurrency firms — had a rough year amid massive trading losses and industry-wide layoffs. Genesis' losses were exacerbated when $900 million in customer deposits were frozen in November 2022 after Sam Bankman-Fried's FTK collapsed and triggered a suspension on withdraws.
The Winklevoss twins were now at the center of another industry controversy centered on their crypto exchange company, Gemini Earn, and its lender, Genesis.
Bankman-Fried said his 'useful life' was over when he addressed the court on Thursday.
According to the Post, court documents detailed the latest feud between the Winklevoss twins and a former friend, Barry Silbert, whose company Digital Currency Group now owns Genesis.
The twins' new venture, Gemini, was accused of siphoning millions from Genesis in the months leading up to the former's collapse. Over a five-day window in August 2022, records revealed $282 million in withdraws from Silbert's Genesis.
The Winklevoss twins claimed they were not aware of the dire financial state of their firm's lender.
One document showed the alarming difference in deposits made by Gemini to Genesis, which reportedly declined by $176 million between August 5 and August 10, 2022, and withdrawals. Over the same period, Gemini pulled $282 million from the lender.
It remains unclear whether the massive transaction was the twins' personal crypto or corporate assets, though it's important to note that the figure did not include any Gemini customer assets.
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The twins settled their Facebook feud with Zuckerberg for $65 million in 2008.
An email sent on August 8, a day before the withdrawal was made, detailed the brother's request, which asked for 3,120 bitcoins, 18,060 ether, 9.6 million units of Dogecoin, and 142 million units of Gemini's "stablecoin."
"They pulled out their own money, whether that’s corporate funds or their own personal [funds] — only a few months before Genesis announced they were putting up the gates and customers would not be able to withdraw their assets," an insider told the outlet.
"They decided they were comfortable for the Earn customers but not comfortable for themselves," the insider added.
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The shocking withdrawal raised several questions, the most pressing being what, if anything, the twins knew about the state of the industry at the time their request was made.
The twins sued Silbert and his Digital Currency Group in July and claimed they were not aware of Genesis' deteriorating financial health. The Winklevoss brothers' filing accused Silbert of providing a "false, misleading, and incomplete representation" of the lender's finances.
The twins further accused Silbert of talking them into keeping the partnership with Genesis during a face-to-face meeting after the twins claimed they tried to leave the partnership in October 2022.
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