
Winklevoss twins become first Bitcoin billionaires - andygcook
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2017/12/02/winklevoss-twins-become-first-bitcoin-billionaires
======
ramzyo
Wow, admittedly my perception of these guys was totally skewed after seeing
the movie The Social Network. When I read about their original investment in
2013 I totally wrote it off as being a hairbrained move. Clearly succumbed to
my own biases in passing that unfair judgment. Good for them for being so
savvy.

~~~
ACow_Adonis
Or....it was a hair-brained move, but it happened to turn out well for them,
and now you're succumbing to post-fact rationalisation bias that rich gamblers
who get a payout at a point in time actually know what they're doing...

Edit: ironically?, the fact that most people partake in this bias actually
increases such people's likelihood of being successful in the future.

~~~
meowface
Or it was neither a brilliant nor a hair-brained move and was a reasonably
calculated risk which paid off likely due to a mix of luck and prescience?
There were many reasonable, intelligent people out there who weren't blinded
by the anarchy/libertarian hype and yet still speculated Bitcoin's price would
skyrocket based on rational predictions and bets.

The fact that these guys were partly on the ground floor for the rise of one
of the most influential tech companies in the world and very much on the
ground floor for one of the (so far) highest ROI assets and biggest
technological advances (practical blockchain, consensus, and cryptocurrency
tech; not Bitcoin in particular) of the past 50 years shows that at the very
least they're probably not bozo meatheads in the way Sorkin and Fincher
portrayed them (as entertaining as the movie was).

~~~
NoahWebster
Folks, the word is spelled _hare_ brained.

~~~
jlgaddis
I'm impressed that you created a new account to contribute to the conversation
with such a substantive, thought-prevoking comment.

~~~
FairDune
It's "thought-provoking", not "thought-prevoking".

~~~
jlgaddis
Thank you, Merriam-Webster.

~~~
NoahWebster
The name's Noah.

------
fragsworth
Satoshi Nakamoto was the first bitcoin billionaire, quite a while ago.
Assuming Satoshi is one person. But I suppose nobody really knows who it is.

~~~
gaspoweredcat
that was my first thought too, satoshi is if memory serves worth around 11
billion now so even if the reality is that he is a few people theyre all
probably billionaires

~~~
m-i-l
It is claimed Satoshi has around 1M BTC[0]. But this is only "worth" something
if the private keys haven't been lost, forgotten, or intentionally or
accidentally destroyed, and given the lack of movement there is no evidence of
this.

[0] [https://bitslog.wordpress.com/2013/04/17/the-well-
deserved-f...](https://bitslog.wordpress.com/2013/04/17/the-well-deserved-
fortune-of-satoshi-nakamoto/)

------
khazhoux
I don't understand the liquidity of bitcoin, maybe someone can please explain
to me.

If I'd bought what today is, say, $100M, and I wanted to cash all of it out
tomorrow, could I do it? Could I actually have $100M in my bank account the
next day?

Edit: ok, not in one day. Let's say, over 6 months, whatever it takes. Can I
withdraw $100M?

~~~
stryk
Now I'm no crypto-currency expert, but from the outside looking in it seems
like: In _theory_ Bitcoin is worth $10k each or whatever it is now, but in
_actuality_ it's only worth whatever arbitrary limits the various 'exchanges'
set on real-money withdraws? So how is this "decentralized"? There's still a
semi-central location you have to go to in order to get any real, actual
currency out of it.

~~~
imcoconut
Transactions in bitcoin, eg sending a bitcoin from one wallet to another,
occur on the blockchain and are decentralized. The fiat value of bitcoin,
however, is determined by supply and demand for that bitcoin-fiat cross, just
like anything else in open markets. That trading for these crosses occur on
the exchanges.

> There's still a semi-central location you have to go to in order to get any
> real, actual currency out of it

This is definitely still the case. The exchanges themselves, though, could
potentially be implemented via blockchain. This would likely reduce
transaction costs and could make them more secure. In this case the would
actually be decentralized.

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drumhead
How long I wonder before we reach the top of this particular bubble.

If anything, this story is likely to perpetuate the bull market in Crypto for
a while longer. We'll probably get more stories of the most unlikely bitcoin
billionaires over the next few months which will just add more fuel to the
fire.

My guess is that some sort of action by financial regulators will cause the
bubble to burst, but quite when that happens who knows. In the meantime, its
going to be fascinating to see how it develops. Its history in the making, a
case study for the future.

~~~
down
gold is a 2000 years bubble, which financial regulator, US accounts for 25% of
the trading volume, in Japan is legal tender, the problem for 1 single country
to let's say ban it, is that you don't want to be left behind, unless you're a
dictatorship.

------
missandei
To me this is just the typical example of people that profited handsomely
because of: 1- being sons of rich people and 2- being disgustingly lucky

Bitcoin is a braindead bubble with no fundamentals whatsoever, these guys just
happened to have a few million lying around, they put it into something that
made absolutely zero sense and ended up billionaires.

~~~
golergka
> being disgustingly lucky

Getting lucky once can happen. Getting lucky twice, with Facebook and Bitcoin,
is so improbable that it asks for a different kind of explanation.

~~~
derefr
Lots of people with high risk-tolerance got _kind of_ rich by buying Bitcoin
early. The only difference with the Winklevosses is that they had a lot more
money to leverage in that early investment. It's not improbable that _someone_
was going to have a lot of money and put it into Bitcoin.

~~~
golergka
It's also not improbable that someone got involved in the earliest stage of
what was Facebook by pure luck.

However, both those things together are starting to get just a little bit
improbable from the pure luck standpoint, don't you think?

~~~
derefr
Any professional investor is riding on a combination of a very long lucky
streak, and portfolio-based risk-adjusting. Paying attention to the
Winklevosses here is a selection effect; you're ignoring everyone who executed
the exact same investment _strategy_ they did, but ended up making bad bets
rather than good ones.

You can entirely explain away the Winklevoss' success by supposing an investor
pool of sufficient size that you can pick a set of first-pass winners
(1:10000, say) and then pick a second-pass winner from that set (1:10000
again), where they happened to be the ones to be drawn, and everyone else
wasn't. The sheer number of people _trying_ to win explains away the
improbability required to win—in exactly the same way that the number of
people entered into a lottery explains away the improbability of the winner's
guess.

Also, we only know who the Winklevosses are _because_ they were a first-pass
winner. So there's no reason to privilege them here; it'd make much more sense
to look at _all_ first-pass winners (in this case, early Facebook investors),
rather than this random famous example of one, and then ask about this set's
_cumulative_ probability of _at least one_ of them having gotten even richer
from an early Bitcoin investment.

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raintrees
Only if they sell, and wouldn't a $1B sale pretty much tank it? Is there
enough financial coverage from the banking sector behind the exchange houses
to cover such a large sell?

~~~
TAForObvReasons
This is true of any company equity as well. If Bezos decided to unload his
entire stake in amazon, for example, the stock price would tank. At that
level, it's all based on valuation, not liquidation value

~~~
MBCook
Right, but there is a fundamental value to Amazon. The stocking never go to
zero dollars just because of Bezos selling because the company is clearly
worth more than that.

If the Winklevoss twins tried to sell just 1% of their stake, $10 million,
what would happen to the price of bitcoin? Would they have $990 million of
bitcoin left?

I’m guessing it would be a hell of a lot less. I think it would cause a panic.

I’m not going to say would go to zero, but I’m willing to bet it would drop a
TON more than Amazon stock would if Bezos sold 1%.

~~~
bestnameever
USD trade volume for bitcoin has been around 2 to 11 trillion in the last
month.

[https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/historical-
data...](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/historical-data/)

------
SimonPStevens
The only unique thing about this story is the amount of money they initially
gambled.

There are lots of people who gambled on bitcoin in 2013, and the only
difference is that they couldn't afford to gamble $8million.

I don't really find that particularly interesting or newsworthy

------
m3kw9
I always think once you are lucky, twice you are good

~~~
fouc
Unpacking that for others:

The Winklevoss twins were onto something with social networks. Then they were
onto something with bitcoin. So basically they're not just lucky but good at
catching onto the next new thing.

~~~
lucaspiller
Without seeing how many failed investments they’ve made that’s not really a
fair assumption.

------
paulsutter
Meanwhile Mark Zuckerberg is worth $70B so the nerds still win

~~~
criddell
At the current growth rates, they will easily beat Zuckerberg to $1 trillion
of personal wealth. If the current growth rates could be sustained, in 10
years their personal wealth will rival the GDP of the entire country.

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megadethz
Roger Ver is also a Bitcoin multi Billionaire.

~~~
simonebrunozzi
Proof?

~~~
megadethz
He signed a message a while ago with a large amount of BTC and is known to be
one of the earliest BTC whales.

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FabHK
This dude on HN is worth some $3bn, assuming he HODLed (EDIT to add: he/she
bought 259684 BTC for $3000 in the wake of Mt Gox)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2676263](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2676263)

------
down
is not bad, if they sell and the bitcoin price crashes, so what if it crashes,
will only get more adoption, because is more useful than gold, especially with
the new generation, and gold market cap is so much bigger than bitcoin, I
would love a crash to buy some, rather than spending it on things I don't
really need.

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sAbakumoff
Glad for these guys. Murky Marc stolen their idea and fucked it up, 1b is a
nice compensation for that!

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megadethz
Well deserved.

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tw1010
Lottery winners hailed as geniuses, news at 11.

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VeronicaJJ123
We do not know about their other investments that tanked. This is how
investment world generally works. You lose most your bets but the one bet that
gives result pays for it and more.

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jacknews
They seem to have a knack of making big money from other people's projects.

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hateduser2
This comment is totally Off topic. Thats a warning so that if you'd rather
stay on topic it doesn't waste your time!

I'm not sure if your account is banned @pussypusspuss.. but it seems like a
cruel fate to be commenting, have your comments removed, and have no knowledge
of your punishment. I think itd be better if you knew your condition so I'm
leaving this comment to let you know. I hope the rest of hacker news doesn't
mind this!

