The Winklevoss twins are in another mess—and it has to do with crypto

Entrepreneurs Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss pose prior to attend the Premiere of the film "The social network" directed by David Fincher on October 3, 2010 in Paris (Credit: Thomas Samson—AFP/Getty Images)

The Winklevii—or Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, to use their given names—first rose to fame in the mid-2000s when they sued Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, claiming he had stolen their idea for Facebook when they studied together at Harvard. The 6-foot-5 brothers’ story was eventually detailed in the 2010 film The Social Network, including the part where Zuckerberg paid them millions to walk away.

Rowing fans might recognize the Winklevii from their sixth place finish in men’s pairs rowing at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, too, but in recent years, the brothers have been in the news for an entirely new reason: cryptocurrencies. The early Bitcoin adopters tapped into the digital asset boom of the early 2010s before launching a crypto exchange, Gemini, in 2014.