Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, thought to be the world's first confirmed bitcoin billionaires, said, during a Bloomberg TV interview this morning that the advent of futures is just the beginning of a phase of greater acceptance for the cryptocurrency that is often derided as a bubble.
"We think it’s the starting gun to a whole new phase of liquidity and price discovery and sophisticated entrance to the market."
As a reminder, the Winklevoss twins are co-founders of the Gemini exchange, which Cboe Global Markets Inc. is using as the basis for the daily settlement for the bitcoin futures that began trading this week.
The Winklevoss brothers said in 2013 that they owned almost $11 million worth of bitcoins.
If they retained that stake it would be valued at about $950 million today, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The ranking calculates they each have a $1.1 billion fortune as of Monday after taking into account other assets.
In the interview with Bloomberg TV, the Winklevi twins explain that "Bitcoin is like Gold 2.0"...
The twins explain that the cryptocurrency has the potential to disrupt gold, and the potential for a further twentyfold increase in the price of bitcoin.
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Finally, reflecting back on the advent of Bitcoin futures trading, the twins took a shot at Jamie Dimon - infamous for his "bitcoin is a fraud" outbursts and "anyone who buys bitcoin is stupid" ignorance - suggesting that the JPMorgan CEO should kick off the shorting of bitcoin futures,
"We're just waiting for Jaime Dimon. Put your money where you mouth is."