Winklevoss Twins Reach Settlement With Charlie Shrem

The Winklevoss twins reached a settlement with Charlie Shrem on April 16, 2019, declaring that their case against him has been dismissed with prejudice and will not be reopened.

The twins, who founded the Gemini cryptocurrency exchange, originally sued Shrem, the founder of early bitcoin company BitInstant, in November 2018, alleging that Shrem stole 5,000 bitcoin from the pair in 2012. They asserted that Shrem agreed to build a stockpile of cryptocurrency for them at their expense but then came up short by nearly $60,000 in bitcoin at the contemporary market rate, keeping this portion of the hoard secret until its worth grew to the tens of millions of dollars.

As the case proceeded, however, Shrem took an early upper hand. Several days after it was opened, federal judge Jed S. Rakoff ordered the end to a freeze on Shrem’s assets and financial accounts. Shrem’s legal team suggested that a separate person entirely was responsible for the unaccounted crypto assets.

After several months of relative quiet, the digitally-published proceedings of the case were updated in April 2019, suggesting a near end to the legal battle. On April 5, both parties declared to the court that they had reached an undisclosed settlement. This statement claimed that the suit was dismissed with prejudice but that both parties would have the opportunity to reopen the lawsuit within 30 days provided the agreement was not put into effect.

Neither party was inclined to let this deadline run out, however. A second statement released 11 days later, claimed “by and through their respective counsel of record, that the entire civil action be dismissed with prejudice.” Both parties will bear their own legal costs, and “the case will not be reopened.”

Given the brevity of these statements and the figures involved, further details regarding the exact agreement between the two parties may never become public knowledge.