From Facebook - to bitcoins: the story about the ability to see trends

We often talk about the importance of tracking market trends. It is exactly this skill that helps successful investors make the right and sometimes life-changing financial decisions. So you will definitely be inspired by the story of the Winklevoss brothers and finally understand what we meant by the "vision of prospects".

Brothers Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss were well-known authors of the University social media project at Harvard who approached Mark Zuckerberg, a student at the same university, with the task of creating a working version of their idea. You already know what happened next: Zuckerberg launched his social media calling it Facebook, and the twins later managed to sue him for $65 million for the stolen concept.

The lawyers advised the Winklevoss brothers to take the money in cash, but they wanted $45 million in Facebook shares. In 2009, this amount accounted for more than 1.2 million shares with the company value of $1.5 billion. Back then, the lawyers considered this gesture a manifestation of madness, but just 3 years later, Facebook went for IPO, and the value of the brothers' stake rose to $300 million!

In the same year, the twins founded their venture fund and over 5 years invested in more than 80 different projects, many of which became successful. But the main surprise was expecting them right around the corner!

In the same year of 2012, the brothers purchased 120 thousand bitcoins – at that time it was a little-known cryptocurrency costing only $10 per unit. In 2013, they claimed to own 1% of the world's bitcoins. Soon, the market value of this currency began to grow rapidly, and in 2017, the twins Tyler and Cameron became the first official dollar billionaires to earn on bitcoins: their fortune amounted to $1.5 billion.

Analyzing the amount that the brothers invested in bitcoins in 2012, we can assume that investments in the cryptocurrency brought them from 160,000% to 310,000% of profit.
A coincidence? We don't think so ;) Rather, an invaluable ability to see trends and invest in promising projects.

If you are a beginner investor, but do not know yet how to distinguish promising projects, reread our article "Information – at the service of a successful investor".