Winklevoss Twins Invest in Bitcoin Startup BitInstant
Winklevii Invest in BitInstant
“We’re definitely pretty fascinated by it. The classic issue with Bitcoin is that it’s very early days.” — Tyler Winklevoss
The WinkleVoss twins, the two Harvard graduates who sued Mark Zuckerberg over the creation of Facebook, have been getting into Bitcoins. First, it was learned that they own 1% of the Bitcoin economy, and today TechCrunch learned that the Winklevii have invested in BitInstant, a Bitcoin startup.
BitInstant, a New York City based startup that operates an online platform for buying and selling Bitcoins, has raised $1.5 million in a seed funding round led by Winklevoss Capital with the participation of other strategic investors including money services veteran David Azar. The investment was closed this past fall, but the Winklevosses are just now publicly announcing it in the lead-up to the Bitcoin Foundation’s 2013 Conference being held in Silicon Valley this weekend.
Via TechCrunch.
[...] are lots of startups getting into Bitcoin, from networks like Ripple to exchanges like BitInstant. Now there’s a new fund designed to support Bitcoin startups, called Boost Bitcoin [...]
[...] However, the growth of Bitcoin is also dependent on entrepreneurs like Charlie. Once laughed out of every venture capitalist’s office in New York City, Charlie Shrem convinced his mother to take out her life savings in order to start BitInstant, which solved the problem of “how do you buy bitcoins?” Today, as a result of Shrem’s efforts, you can walk into any 7/11 and buy Bitcoin in addition to your daily coffee or Slurpee. Later the famous, or infamous, Winklevoss twins invested in the startup. [...]
[…] was CEO of BitInstant, a Bitcoin exchange that raised funding from the Winklevoss twins and later suspended operations. The Winklevosses issued this statement […]