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Winklevoss twins plan $20 million Bitcoin IPO

Winklevoss twins: Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust is designed to operate like an exchange-traded fund. The Winklevoss twins have reportedly amassed $11 million in Bitcoins.

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REUTERS/Adam Hunger/Files
Cameron (L) and Tyler Winklevoss in Boston, Mass. A U. S. Appeals Court ruled in 2011 that the brothers cannot back out of a settlement with giant social networking firm Facebook over claims that CEO Mark Zuckerberg stole their idea.
  • By Alexei Oreskovic Reuters

| San Francisco

The Winklevoss twins, who famously alleged that Facebook Inc founder Mark Zuckerberg stole their website idea, have revealed plans for an IPO that will give investors exposure to the value of digital currency Bitcoins.

Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust, which is designed to operate like an exchange-traded fund, will initially sell $20 million worth of shares, with each share worth a fraction of a Bitcoin, a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission showed on Monday.

The shares are aimed at investors "seeking a cost-effective and convenient means to gain exposure to Bitcoins with minimal credit risk," the prospectus reads.

Bitcoins are a form of electronic money that is not managed by a single company or government. They are "mined" by software running a set of algorithms and their release is tightly controlled, mimicking a central banking system's control over the minting of money.

The value of a Bitcoin has been extremely volatile since the start of the year, rising from $13 in January to a peak of $266 in April and back down to around $100 last week.

Bitcoins have been touted by some as the future of money and gained in prominence amid the euro zone sovereign debt crisis as more people questioned the safety of holding their cash in the bank.

But others dismiss the currency as a Ponzi Scheme and authorities worry about its lack of regulation. In May, U.S. authorities seized two accounts linked to a major operator in the Bitcoin digital currency market.

Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, whose feud with Zuckerberg was portrayed in the fictionalized 2010 film "The Social Network," have amassed nearly $11 million worth of Bitcoins, according to a report in the New York Times in April.

The identical twins settled the suit with Facebook in 2008 for cash and stock then valued at $65 million.

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