Zuckerberg nemeses the Winkelvoss twins are big into Bitcoin

Forget Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg’s athletically built nemeses the Winkelvoss twins are now into Bitcoins.

According to the New York Times, the two apparently hold one of the largest portfolios of the sought-after virtual currency. The two, rare among Bitcoin investors for disclosing their investment, say they own nearly US$11-million worth of Bitcoins.

The digital currency has been going through a slightly tumultuous period of late, but that hasn’t stopped seasoned investors such as Andreessen Horowitz backing Bitcoin-related startups like OpenCoin.

The Winkelvoss twins are certain that what Bitcoin is just going through a few growing pains and should settle down as it becomes more mainstream.

“People say it’s a Ponzi scheme, it’s a bubble,” Cameron Winklevoss told the New York Times. “People really don’t want to take it seriously. At some point that narrative will shift to ‘virtual currencies are here to stay.’ We’re in the early days”.

The digital currency started back in 2009 when a hacker, using the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, launched a form of currency that escaped the reaches of the global financial crisis. Little is known about the hacker, or indeed if they were acting as part of a group.

There aren’t too many places that accept Bitcoin as currency just yet, although the Winkelvii, as they are sometimes called, reportedly paid a Ukranian developer who worked on their site in the currency.

“We have elected to put our money and faith in a mathematical framework that is free of politics and human error,” Tyler Winklevoss said.

When the brothers settled with Zuckerberg, after accusing him of stealing the idea for Facebook from them, for US$20-million and Facebook shares that are now worth US$200-million. A portion of that wealth went into their investment company Winklevoss Capital. According to the New York Times, their first two investments were in Hukkster, a start-up shopping Web site and SumZero, an online community for professional money managers.

In a bid to keep their Bitcoin investments secure the two have apparently taken the codes that represent the investments off networked computers, saved them on flash drives and put them in safety deposit boxes in three US cities.

They’re not passive investors either, the brothers say the used a recent downturn in the currency’s fortune to buy more of it.

“It has been four years and it has yet to be discredited as a viable alternative to fiat currency,” Tyler Winklevoss said. “We could be totally wrong, but we are curious to see this play out a lot more.”