The Facebook twins became the first bitcoin billionaires in history. This is the story of how it happened

After confronting Zuckerberg, they intend to pursue an investor career, but quickly discover that no one wants to accept money from them. Licking their wounds in Ibiza, they meet an eccentric businessman who tells them about the innovative idea of ​​cryptocurrency. The brothers delve into the confusing and even dangerous world of bitcoin and quickly realize that it will be – to recall their words – “either something really big or a complete fake”.

On November 26, 2017, the Winklevoss brothers became the first Bitcoin billionaires in history. This book is the story of how it happened.

Ben Mezrich’s “Bitcoin Gods” translated by Jacek Konieczny, Poradnia K 2022 – excerpt:

Chapter One, In the Lion’s Cage, February 22, 2008.

Twenty-second floor office building on the edge of San Francisco’s financial district.

Glass, steel, and concrete cut into brightly lit cubes, filled with air too chilled by air conditioning. White-yellow walls and light-beige carpets. Stripes of fluorescent lamps dividing suspended ceilings into a huge tic-tac-toe board. Potted water vending machines, conference tables with chrome edges, artificial leather swivel chairs.

It was just after 3pm on a Friday afternoon when Tyler Winklevoss stood at the panoramic window that overlooked a dome of similar office buildings emerging from the afternoon mist. He sipped water from a thin disposable cup, trying hard not to spill his tie.

Even if after so many days, months – hell, years! – the tie seemed completely unnecessary to him. There was a risk that if the case continued, Tyler would come to the next meeting in his Olympic rowing jacket.

He barely got a sip, and the cup bent inward at the pressure of his fingers. Rivers of water missed the tie, but the cuff of his elegant shirt was soaked. He tossed the mug into the trash can by the window and began shaking off his wet wrist.

– Another thing that should be added to the list. Paper cups in the shape of an ice cream cone. What kind of sadist has come up with something like this?

– Maybe the same guy who invented this lighting. Since we’re on this floor, I look like I go to the tanning bed regularly. I’m betting that in Purgatory, instead of the fire pits, there are rows of fluorescent fluorescent lamps.

Cameron, Tyler’s brother, sat at the far end of the room stretched out in two faux leather armchairs; he rested his long legs on the corner of the rectangular conference table. He was dressed in a jacket without a tie. One of his size forty-eight boots rested dangerously close to the raised screen of Tyler’s laptop, but Tyler chose not to comment. They had already had a long day behind them.

Tyler knew inactivity was no accident. Mediation is different from a trial. The latter is a fierce battle in which both sides fight for victory in (as mathematicians and economists would say) a zero-sum game. Yes, there are also quiet periods in a lawsuit, but there is always this primal energy bursting beneath the surface – a lawsuit is essentially like a war. Mediation is different. When done properly, there are no winners or losers, only two parties who have found a compromise solution. Mediation is not like a war, but rather a long bus journey that ends only when all passengers are bored of enjoying the sights so much that they are able to agree on a common destination.

“It’s just that,” Tyler said, turning back to the window and the drab North California afternoon, “we’re not stuck in Purgatory.”

Whenever the lawyers left the room, Tyler and Cameron tried not to discuss the matter. They had devoted enough time to this before. They were filled with so much anger and such a strong sense of harm that they could hardly think of anything else. But as the weeks turned into months, they concluded that prolonged fomenting these emotions could drive them insane. As lawyers used to say, the brothers had to trust the system. Therefore, when they were left alone, they tried to talk about everything but what had brought them to this place.

The fact that they turned to medieval literature, and more specifically to Dante’s concept of the circles of hell, testified to the declining effectiveness of the adopted strategy. It seemed that by trusting in the justice system, they had become prisoners of one of the places Dante had invented. Either way, it was some topic they could focus on. When they grew up in Connecticut as teenagers, Tyler and Cameron became obsessed with Latin. As they had no subjects left in their last year of high school, they asked the headmaster for permission to establish a medieval Latin seminary with a Jesuit who was in charge of teaching the language at the school. The twins and the monk translated the Confessions of St. Augustine of Hippo and medieval scientific works.

Though Dante didn’t write his greatest work in Latin, they both knew Italian well enough to have fun updating Hell’s décor now: water dispensers, fluorescent lights, boards … lawyers.

“If we were to be precise, we should say we’re in the abyss,” Tyler noted. – He is in purgatory. We haven’t done anything wrong.

There was a knock on the door. One of their lawyers, Peter Calamari, was the first to enter the room. Thinning hair framed a protruding forehead and a sagging chin. A Hawaiian palm-patterned shirt was casually stuffed into the waistband of blue jeans, so huge the man looked funny as he walked. Tyler wouldn’t be surprised if the tag was still on them. Worst of all, Calamari was wearing sandals.

He probably bought them from the same store where he bought his jeans. After the lawyer, the mediator entered the room. Antonio “Tony” Piazza looked much more serious. He was so thin that he looked almost gaunt. He was wearing an extremely elegant suit and tie. His gray-streaked hair was cut short and well-groomed, his cheeks were not too tan. The press called Piazza. “Master of mediation” – he has successfully resolved over four thousand complex disputes and allegedly had a photographic memory. In addition, he was a martial arts specialist and believed that training aikido teaches him to redirect aggression into something more productive. Piazza was tireless. In theory, he would be the perfect bus driver for a never-ending journey.

By the time the door closed behind both lawyers, Cameron had lifted his legs off the table.

– He agreed?

He directed the question to the Piazza. The brothers were beginning to suspect that Calamari, one of the partners of the self-righteous, pompous law firm Quinn Emanuel, was merely playing the role of a messenger between them and the Aikido master. Cameron believed that if someone tried to appeal to representatives of Silicon Valley with oversized jeans and sandals, he should be considered a poser rather than a lawyer.

In fact, it shouldn’t be there at all. Calamari replaced Rick Werder, Jr., their lead attorney in charge of their case, when the latter canceled his last minute presence to represent another firm in a two-billion-dollar bankruptcy case.

dollars. Although the fate of the twins was entirely in his hands, Werder did not attend the meeting that would settle the matter. The Winklevoss brothers guessed he had chosen a bigger, tastier morsel.

The idea of ​​strengthening their team of lawyers occurred to the twins at the end of the preparatory phase of the proceedings, in the face of the approaching trial. The lawyers at the firm founded in 1986 by John B. Quinn were considered tough guys and only dealt with litigation and arbitration. Their law firm was also the first in which there was no dress code – unthinkable in the world of renowned law firms. It was precisely this innovation that should have been blamed on Calamari’s unsuccessful eccentricity.

“He doesn’t say no,” said Piazza. – Nevertheless, he has some doubts.

Tyler looked at his brother. The application they made was Cameron’s idea. They had spent so much time discussing with lawyers – and more recently with Piazza, the silver-haired sphinx constantly looking for common ground – that Cameron began looking for a way to end this whole circus faster. Hell, they and Mark Zuckerberg hadn’t met in the university cafeteria a short time before. Maybe they could sit down together at the table again, this time without their lawyers, and just talk it over?

– What kind of doubts? Cameron asked.

Piazza was silent for a moment.

– It’s about security.

Tyler didn’t understand the man’s words at first. His brother jumped up from his chair.

– He thinks we’re going to punch him? Cameron asked. – Seriously?

Tyler felt his cheeks flush.

– You must be kidding.

Their lawyer took a step forward and tried to smooth things over.

– Most importantly, it is open to suggestions. Apart from the issue of security.

“Wait a minute, I’d like to get it right,” Tyler said. – Does he really think we’re going to beat him? During mediation? At the mediator’s office?

Piazza’s face did not change expression, but he lowered his voice as he followed the sentences. Now his words had an incredibly soothing, almost sleepy sound.

– Let’s try not to deviate from the main thread. Theoretically, he is ready to meet. It only remains to determine the details.

– Or maybe you will chase us to the water dispenser? Cameron asked. – Will he feel safer then?

– There will be no such need. At the end of the corridor there is a glass conference room. We can organize a meeting there. One of you will go inside and talk to him in private. We’re going to sit outside and watch.

The situation was completely absurd. Tyler felt they were being treated like wild animals. Security issues. Well, those were probably his words. They sounded just like anything he could say or even think.

Or is it some kind of trick? The idea that in the company of just one of them he would not feel physically threatened was almost as ridiculous as the fact that they could beat him. Didn’t he think that talking to just one of them would give him some sort of intellectual advantage? The brothers felt that from the very beginning he was watching them judgingly because of their appearance. To him, they were just popular campus guys, stupid athletes who can’t even program, and have to hire a nerd to build their site – a site that he, a little genius, could, or should have, come up with. After all, if they were inventors, they would have invented it themselves. Well, if you used that logic, they might actually want to knock him out if they were alone with him.

Tyler closed his eyes for a moment. Then he shrugged.

– Cameron will go.

His brother was always a little more composed, he wasn’t quite the alpha male, so he was willing to make concessions in a situation where that would be the only solution. And Tyler had no doubt that this was one of those situations.

“Like a tiger in a cage,” Cameron said as they followed Piazza and their lawyer into the hallway. – Prepare a tranquilizer rifle. If I fell for his throat, please aim for his jacket. It belongs to my brother.