It was 2013 when the Winklevoss twins, steeped in controversy from that saga nearly a decade earlier, announced via reddit that they had bought 1% of all bitcoins due to the cryptocurrency’s “elegance and very huge potential”.

The Winklevii – as they are popularly referred to – made their name in 2004 when they sued Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, claiming he had stolen their ConnectU idea to create the popular social networking site, Facebook, and ultimately received $65 million.

So how much is Cameron and Tyler’s 1% worth now? Let’s do some maths:

According to Wired, there are 12 million bitcoins in circulation. 1% of 12 million would be 120 000, and this past weekend, bitcoin’s value surged to $9 600 – meaning the twins’ bitcoin wealth is currently sitting at around $1,16 billion.

That’s a casual R16 billion made off a brave early investment.

But they don’t own the most amount of bitcoins in the world.

Rather, bitcoin’s “inventor” Satoshi Nakamoto is estimated to have mined one million bitcoins in the currency’s early days.

Following him is the American government:

In September, the FBI shut down the Silk Road online drug marketplace, and it started seizing bitcoins belonging to the Dread Pirate Roberts — the operator of the illicit online marketplace, who they say is an American man named Ross Ulbricht.

The seizure sparked an ongoing public discussion about the future of Bitcoin, the world’s most popular digital currency, but it had an unforeseen side-effect: It made the FBI the holder of the world’s biggest Bitcoin wallet.

The FBI now controls more than 144,000 bitcoins that reside at a bitcoin address that consolidates much of the seized Silk Road bitcoins. Another address, containing Silk Road funds seized earlier by the FBI, contains nearly 30,000 bitcoins.

However, as most bitcoin addresses aren’t publicly identified, it’s hard to say exactly who makes up the bitcoin top 10 owners these days.

If you’re interested in starting to grow your own bitcoin wallet, make sure you check in with Luno who can help you with everything.

Check them out here, and maybe one you can be like the Winklevii.

[source:wired]