Cameron Winklevoss

Cameron Winklevoss was born on August 21, 1981, in Southampton, New York, and grew up in Greenwich, ConnecticutConnecticutConnecticut is a U.S. state in the New England region. Its capital is Hartford and its largest city is Bridgeport (2010 census). It entered the Union on January 9, 1788, as the 5th state, and had a population of 3,605,944 in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020).Open the full entry. He and his twin brother Tyler did things together from an early age; at 13, the two taught themselves HTML and started a small business building websites for companies.⁠[1]

Cameron began rowing at 15 and joined the Saugatuck Rowing Club in 1997. In the summer of 1999, he and Tyler were selected for the U.S. Junior National Team and competed in the coxed pair at the World Rowing Junior Championships in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. His discipline was sweep rowing.⁠[1]

In December 2001, Cameron, Tyler, and their HarvardHarvard UniversityHarvard University is a private research university in Massachusetts, established by the Massachusetts Bay Colony legislature in 1636 and named in 1639 for early benefactor John Harvard. Its principal campuses are in Cambridge and the Allston and Longwood neighborhoods of Boston. It includes Harvard College, graduate and professional schools, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Two governing boards share oversight. Alan M. Garber was president as of October 2026, and the endowment stood at $56.9 billion at the end of fiscal 2025.Open the full entry classmate Divya Narendra conceived HarvardConnection, a social network for Harvard students, which was later renamed ConnectU and expanded to other schools.⁠[1]

Cameron entered Harvard University in 2000, majored in economics, and received an AB in 2004. At Harvard he joined the men’s heavyweight crew, which in 2004 won the Eastern Sprints, the IRA Championship, and the Harvard–Yale Regatta, going undefeated for the season.⁠[1]

In 2004, ConnectU sued Facebook, alleging that Mark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark Zuckerberg is the founder of Facebook, Chairman and CEO of Meta, and a co-founder of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. His work spans social networking, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence.Open the full entry had breached an oral agreement and copied ConnectU’s idea. Facebook countersued over a separate project, Social Butterfly, naming Cameron among the defendants. The parties settled both cases in February 2008, in a settlement estimated at about $65 million.⁠[1]

In June 2011, after losing on appeal, the Winklevoss brothers announced that they would not petition the U.S. Supreme CourtSupreme Court of the United StatesThe Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court of the U.S. federal judiciary. Established under the Constitution and the Judiciary Act of 1789, it has consisted since 1869 of a Chief Justice and eight Associate Justices and sits in Washington, D.C.Open the full entry for review.⁠[1]

In 2007, Cameron and Tyler were selected for the U.S. rowing team at the Pan American Games; at the competition in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the brothers’ events won gold in the men’s eight and silver in the men’s coxless four.⁠[1]

In 2008, Cameron was selected for the U.S. Olympic team and partnered with Tyler in the men’s coxless pair at the Beijing Olympics, coached by Ted Nash. The two did not advance directly from the heats; they won the repechage to reach the semifinal, then advanced to the final, where they finished sixth.⁠[1]

That same year, Cameron and Rachelle Hruska co-founded Guest of a Guest, a website covering parties and nightlife in New York, Los Angeles, the Hamptons, and Washington; Hruska bought out his stake in 2012.⁠[1]

In 2009, Cameron won bronze in the men’s coxless four at the Rowing World CupFIFA World CupThe FIFA World Cup is FIFA’s men’s national-team football tournament, held every four years.Open the full entry in Lucerne, Switzerland.⁠[1]

In 2009, Cameron entered Saïd Business School at the University of OxfordUniversity of OxfordThe University of Oxford is a university in Oxford, England, where teaching existed in some form by 1096; it describes itself as the oldest university in the English-speaking world and is organised as a federal system of the university and dozens of self-governing colleges.Open the full entry and received an MBA in 2010. While there, he became an Oxford Blue and rowed in Oxford’s Blue Boat in the 156th Boat Race against Cambridge, which Oxford lost.⁠[1]

On April 11, 2011, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (Judges Alex Kozinski, J. Clifford Wallace, and Barry G. Silverman) ruled in the case between Facebook and ConnectU, Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra, upholding the earlier settlement agreement. In the background of the case, the Winklevoss brothers and Narendra had sued in MassachusettsMassachusettsMassachusetts (officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts) is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States; its capital and largest city is Boston. One of the original 13 states, it ratified the U.S. Constitution on February 6, 1788, the sixth state to do so. Its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 7,029,917.Open the full entry, and Facebook had countersued in CaliforniaCaliforniaCalifornia is a U.S. state on the Pacific coast; its capital is Sacramento and its largest city is Los Angeles. California was admitted to the Union on September 9, 1850, as the 31st state. Its population at the 2020 Census (April 1, 2020) was 39,538,223, the largest of any state.Open the full entry, accusing the Winklevoss brothers of hacking into Facebook and sending spam to its users. The parties then mediated under court order and signed a handwritten settlement document under which the Winklevoss brothers agreed to give up ConnectU in exchange for cash and Facebook equity, with the specific acquisition documents to be determined by Facebook in the form of a “stock and cash for stock acquisition.”⁠[2]

The court found that although the settlement agreement omitted some terms, its core terms were sufficiently clear for it to be enforceable, and that the two brothers’ fraud claims were barred by its confidentiality provisions and broad release language. The judgment was affirmed.⁠[2]

In the 2008 settlement, Facebook agreed to pay $20 million in cash and stock worth $45 million. On appeal, the two argued that Facebook had failed to disclose an internal valuation showing that the stock was worth less than they believed. After the ruling, Tyler’s lawyer said he would seek a rehearing within 15 days on the grounds that the settlement violated federal securities laws.⁠[3]

In 2012, Cameron and Tyler founded the investment firm Winklevoss Capital (WCF), which invests across multiple asset classes with a focus on providing seed funding and infrastructure to early-stage startups.⁠[1]

Since 2012, Cameron has participated in the digital asset space through direct purchases of bitcoin; that same year, he and Tyler co-founded the private investment firm Winklevoss Capital (WCF), which invests in multiple asset classes with a focus on early-stage technology startups.⁠[4]

In July 2013, Cameron and Tyler filed an S-1 registration statement for the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust with the U.S. Securities and Exchange CommissionU.S. Securities and Exchange CommissionThe U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is the federal securities regulator of the United States. Created during the Great Depression by the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and led by five commissioners, it has a three-part mission of protecting investors, maintaining fair, orderly and efficient markets, and facilitating capital formation.Open the full entry, for a proposed $20 million offering, with Math-Based Asset Services LLC as sponsor. The trust’s investment objective was for its shares to reflect the performance of the Blended Bitcoin Price, less the trust’s operating expenses; shares were issued in “baskets” of 50,000 shares, which authorized participants would purchase with bitcoin.⁠[5]

At the time of the filing, the two held about $11 million in bitcoin, about 1% of all bitcoin; the sponsor and management had no prior history of operating such an investment vehicle. In a free writing prospectus with an accompanying interview that same month, the two said they owned about 1% of bitcoin and described the trust as the first-ever digital math-based asset exchange-traded product.⁠[5][6]

In 2014, Cameron and Tyler founded the cryptocurrency exchange Gemini in New York.⁠[1]

On October 5, 2015, the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) granted Gemini Trust CompanyGemini (crypto exchange)Gemini is a New York-based crypto asset trading and services platform founded in 2014 by Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler Winklevoss. It launched its exchange in 2015 after receiving a New York trust company charter. Its holding company, Gemini Space Station, Inc., listed on Nasdaq in September 2025 under the symbol GEMI. Its businesses include an exchange, custody, the Gemini dollar stablecoin, a credit card and the Gemini Predictions prediction market.Open the full entry a limited purpose trust company charter under the New York Banking Law, with Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss listed as founders. Upon approval, the company could begin operating immediately, subject to ongoing NYDFS supervision.⁠[7]

When NYDFS approved Gemini on October 5, 2015, it granted a limited liability trust company charter rather than a BitLicense. The platform was scheduled to open for trading on October 8, 2015, charging a 25 basis point fee to both the buyer and the seller on each trade; bitcoin was kept in offline cold storage, and fiat deposits were held at an FDIC-insured New York bank.⁠[8]

On June 30, 2016, Bats BZX Exchange filed a proposed rule change to list and trade shares of the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust on its exchange. On March 10, 2017, the SEC issued an order disapproving it on the grounds that the proposal was inconsistent with Section 6(b)(5) of the Securities Exchange Act: the significant markets for bitcoin are unregulated, and the exchange had no surveillance-sharing agreements with significant regulated markets. Procedurally, the exchange filed Amendment No. 1 on October 20, 2016, and Amendment No. 2 on February 22, 2017; the trust’s S-1 registration statement was dated February 8, 2017.⁠[9]

BZX sought Commission review of the 2017 disapproval, and after the review, the SEC issued another disapproval order on July 26, 2018, finding that BZX had not shown that its proposal met the requirements of Section 6(b)(5) on preventing fraudulent and manipulative acts. The order set out three reasons: first, the bitcoin market is susceptible to manipulation, given concentrated ownership (possibly half held by fewer than 1,000 people), unregulated overseas exchanges, and academic evidence of past manipulation; second, volume in the Gemini Exchange auction used to determine the trust’s daily value was insufficient, averaging only 178 bitcoin per day in early 2018, far below the 1,000-bitcoin creation unit; third, BZX had no comprehensive surveillance-sharing agreement with a significant regulated bitcoin market.⁠[10]

On September 10, 2018, NYDFS approved Gemini’s issuance of the Gemini dollar, a U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin whose funds are held at U.S. banks and are eligible for FDIC “pass-through” deposit insurance within applicable limits. This was Gemini’s first crypto asset issuance, after its bitcoin ETF application had been rejected in July 2018. The Winklevoss brothers called the Gemini dollar the “world’s first” regulated stablecoin; PaxosPaxosPaxos is a blockchain-infrastructure company founded in 2012 and led by CEO Charles Cascarilla. It provides enterprises with digital-asset custody, trading, settlement and stablecoin-issuance technology. Its associated assets include PYUSD, USDP, PAXG and USDG, with issuer entities and regulatory oversight varying by asset.Open the full entry announced regulatory approval for its stablecoin on the same day.⁠[11]

On November 16, 2022, Genesis Global Capital announced a suspension of withdrawals, freezing about $900 million in assets belonging to about 340,000 Gemini Earn users (the figures used in Cameron’s open letter). Genesis later filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on January 19, 2023. In addition, Gemini’s May 2024 distribution recorded about 232,000 affected users, and the New York Attorney General’s June 2024 settlement covered more than 230,000 investors; the three figures coexist.⁠[12][13][14][15]

On January 2, 2023, Cameron wrote to DCGDigital Currency GroupDigital Currency Group (DCG) is a crypto asset investment and holding company headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, founded by Barry Silbert in 2015. It invests in blockchain startups with permanent capital and owns subsidiaries including the digital asset manager Grayscale. In 2022, its crypto lender Genesis suffered losses after major client Three Arrows Capital defaulted and filed for bankruptcy the following year, leaving DCG and Silbert facing a lawsuit by the New York Attorney General, an SEC penalty, and multiple civil suits.Open the full entry founder and CEO Barry Silbert, demanding action by January 8. The letter said DCG owed Genesis about $1.68 billion, about 65% in the form of a promissory note maturing in June 2032 and about 35% as an intercompany loan due in May 2023, and accused Silbert of using funds for purposes such as stock buybacks. Silbert responded publicly, denying the $1.675 billion figure, saying DCG had never missed an interest payment to Genesis and that the next loan maturity was in May 2023.⁠[12][16]

After the January 8 deadline passed, Cameron published another open letter on January 10, 2023, accusing Genesis of accounting fraud that made its balance sheet look healthier than it was, thereby inducing lenders to keep lending; he also said Silbert’s claim in a July 6, 2022 tweet that DCG had the funds to cover the Three Arrows Capital bankruptcy was untrue, and that DCG had never injected capital into Genesis to cover 3AC’s losses. He called for Silbert’s removal, saying there was “no path forward” with him as CEO. Silbert had not commented publicly when the letter was published.⁠[17]

On July 4, 2023, Cameron issued a further three-page open letter proposing a “final offer” to Silbert to repay Genesis Earn users, including grace-period payments and loans denominated in U.S. dollars, bitcoin, and ether, and said that if it was not accepted, a lawsuit would be filed against DCG and Silbert.⁠[13]

On January 12, 2023, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged Genesis Global Capital, LLC and Gemini Trust Company, LLC with the unregistered offer and sale of securities through the Gemini Earn lending program. The two companies were the parties charged; the charges stated that the program had been offered to retail investors since February 2021, that Gemini charged agent fees of up to 4.29%, that about 340,000 investors (the figure in this case; later returns and settlements involved different figures) and about $900 million in assets were affected when Genesis halted withdrawals in November 2022, and that Gemini had ended the program in January 2023. These are charges brought by the SEC, not findings by a court.⁠[18]

In October 2023, New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit over the Gemini Earn program, expanding it in February 2024 to add defendants including DCG; when the Genesis settlement was announced on May 20, 2024, the litigation was continuing against the remaining defendants, including Gemini Trust Company, LLC. The Attorney General said that at least 29,000 New Yorkers had lost more than $1.1 billion through Genesis’s Gemini Earn program.⁠[19]

On February 28, 2024, NYDFS and Gemini Trust Company reached a settlement over the Earn program: Gemini committed to returning at least $1.1 billion to Earn customers through the Genesis Global Capital bankruptcy proceedings, contributing $40 million to the bankruptcy estate, and paying a $37 million penalty to NYDFS. NYDFS found that Gemini’s due diligence and ongoing monitoring of Genesis Global Capital were inadequate, that its reserves were insufficient, and that it had management and compliance failures. The borrower in this case, Genesis Global Capital, is a different company from Genesis Global Trading, which is licensed by NYDFS.⁠[20]

In federal campaign finance filings disclosed in February 2024, Cameron and Tyler each donated $2.45 million to the pro-cryptocurrency super PAC Fairshake, for a total of $4.9 million. At the time, FairshakeFairshakeFairshake is a U.S. super PAC registered in 2023 and backed by the cryptocurrency industry. It makes independent electoral expenditures supporting candidates favorable to crypto and blockchain development. Its affiliated groups include Protect Progress and Defend American Jobs.Open the full entry had $72.8 million in cash on hand and had raised more than $85 million in total.⁠[21]

In February 2024, Gemini announced an agreement in principle with Genesis and creditors to resolve the Earn bankruptcy: users would recover 100% of their assets in kind, so that a user who lent 1 bitcoin would get back 1 bitcoin; at then-current prices, the returns were worth more than $1.8 billion, $700 million more than the amount frozen in November 2022; about 97% of the assets were expected to be returned within two months of court approval, with the remainder distributed within 12 months; Gemini would contribute $40 million.⁠[22]

On May 29, 2024, Earn users received $2.18 billion in digital assets, equal to 97% of the total amount owed; measured against the roughly $940 million value of the affected assets when Genesis halted withdrawals in November 2022, this was a 232% recovery. The remaining balance was expected to be distributed over the following 12 months. Gemini’s contribution was recorded as $50 million at the May 2024 distribution, differing from the $40 million in the February arrangement; no explanation for the difference has been found.⁠[14][22]

On June 14, 2024, the New York Attorney General announced a settlement with Gemini over the Earn program, under which about $50 million in digital assets would be returned to investors locked in the Earn program (more than 230,000, including at least 29,000 New York residents); Gemini was barred from operating any cryptocurrency lending program in New York StateNew York (state)New York is a state in the eastern United States; its capital is Albany and its largest city is New York City. One of the original 13 states, it ratified the U.S. Constitution on July 26, 1788, becoming the 11th state to join the Union, and its population in the 2020 census was 20,201,249.Open the full entry and was required to cooperate in the litigation against DCG, Barry Silbert, and former Genesis CEO Soichiro Moro. The Attorney General alleged that Gemini had repeatedly assured investors that the Earn partnership with Genesis was a low-risk investment, while internal analyses showed that Genesis’s financial condition was risky, that Genesis’s loans were undercollateralized, and that they were at one point highly concentrated in Alameda Research, and that this information was not disclosed to investors.⁠[15]

On April 9, 2025, Justice Melissa A. Crane of the New York State Supreme Court (New York County) issued a decision in the case stating that Gemini had settled with the Attorney General and was no longer a defendant; the remaining defendants were DCG, Barry E. Silbert, and Soichiro Moro. The court denied the defendants’ motions to dismiss the Martin Act fraud claims and the repeated and persistent fraud claims, but granted dismissal of the claims involving a criminal-law “scheme to defraud” and “conspiracy.”⁠[23]

In June 2022, the CFTCCommodity Futures Trading CommissionThe U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is an independent federal agency created by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission Act of 1974 and operating since 1975 to regulate futures, options and swaps markets; it has treated bitcoin and other virtual currencies as commodities since 2015 and has been chaired since December 22, 2025 by Michael Selig.Open the full entry sued Gemini Trust Company, alleging that between July and December 2017, in the course of self-certifying a bitcoin futures contract, it had made materially false or misleading statements and omissions to the CFTC regarding prefunding requirements and capital costs, mechanisms to prevent self-trading, fee rebate policies, and trading volume and liquidity figures. On January 13, 2025, the CFTC announced that the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York had entered a consent order including a permanent injunction and a $5 million civil penalty.⁠[24][25]

In February 2025, the SEC closed its investigation of Gemini and decided not to take enforcement action. Cameron said the investigation had lasted 699 days and that the SEC had issued a Wells notice 277 days earlier. He said the agency had cost crypto companies heavily in legal fees and lost productivity, and proposed reforms: reimbursing the legal costs of companies investigated or charged by an agency that had not first written rules, publicly firing the enforcement staff involved, and barring those responsible from being appointed or hired by a federal agency.⁠[26]

On August 20, 2025, Tyler and Cameron announced a donation of 188.4547 bitcoin, worth about $21 million, to the newly formed super PAC Digital Freedom Fund PAC, in a post by Tyler on X. The committee was described as the third crypto-focused super PAC and the first to support only Republicans; its goals included winning the midterm elections, advancing market structure legislation, opposing central bank digital currencies, and safeguarding the freedom and growth of the crypto industry.⁠[27][28]

On September 11, 2025, Gemini Space Station, Inc. announced the pricing of its initial public offering: 15,178,572 shares of Class A common stock at $28 per share, raising about $425 million; the shares would trade on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker GEMI from September 12, with closing expected on September 15. The underwriters received a 30-day over-allotment option to purchase up to 300,565 shares from the company and up to 458,364 shares from selling stockholders; the lead bookrunners were Goldman SachsGoldman SachsGoldman Sachs is an American financial services group headquartered in New York whose businesses include investment banking, securities trading, asset management, and wealth management. It traces its origins to the commercial paper business Marcus Goldman founded in 1869; it listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1999 under the ticker GS and became a bank holding company in 2008. David Solomon serves as chairman and chief executive officer.Open the full entry, CitigroupCitigroupCitigroup Inc. is a global diversified financial services holding company based in New York, with a history dating back to 1812.Open the full entry, Morgan StanleyMorgan StanleyMorgan Stanley is an American global financial services firm that grew from an investment banking partnership into a publicly traded financial group spanning investment banking, securities trading, wealth management, and investment management.Open the full entry, and Cantor.⁠[29]

A current report filed on September 15, 2025, stated that the IPO had closed, with a total of 15,937,501 shares of Class A common stock sold at $28 per share, including the underwriters’ option and shares from selling stockholders, for gross proceeds of about $433.4 million before expenses; the company also sold 1,904,761 shares to Nasdaq, Inc. in a private placement at $26.25 per share, for gross proceeds of about $50 million.⁠[30]

Financial data disclosed before the offering closed showed company revenue of $142.2 million in 2024 ($98.1 million in 2023), and revenue of $68.6 million in the first half of 2025 (down about 7.7% year over year) with a net loss of $282.5 million. As of June 30, 2025, the platform had about 523,000 users and 10,000 institutions, more than $18 billion in assets on the platform, and more than $285 billion in cumulative trading volume. The IPO proceeds were intended for general corporate purposes and to repay all or part of third-party debt.⁠[31][32]

After the listing, the two founders, Tyler and Cameron, together held about 94.5% of the combined voting power through Class B common stock. Cameron’s title is co-founder, president, and director; he has been a director of Gemini Space Station, Inc. since August 2025 and a member of the board of managers of Gemini LLC since November 2021; Tyler is chief executive officer and a director.⁠[33][4][34]

On September 15, 2025, debt that Winklevoss Capital Fund (WCF) had provided to Gemini was converted into equity: $200 million in convertible notes and $475 million in term loans plus accrued interest, at a conversion price of $22.40 per share, resulting in the issuance of about 31.1 million Class B super-voting shares. The opening price on the first day was $37.01; by February 2026, the stock had fallen about 85% from that opening price, and its market capitalization had dropped from a peak of about $3.8 billion to about $800 million.⁠[35][36]

As of December 31, 2025, of the crypto assets (bitcoin and ether) Gemini had borrowed from WCF, the outstanding bitcoin balance was 4,619 BTCBitcoinBitcoin (common symbol BTC) is an open peer-to-peer electronic cash protocol, network, and native digital asset. Full nodes independently verify transactions and blocks according to the consensus rules; transactions are recorded as UTXOs, and blocks are organized into a public ledger through proof of work. Bitcoin is not issued or managed by any single institution, but using, holding in custody, and trading it still involve key, privacy, market, and legal risks.Open the full entry, worth about $400 million; the borrowing agreement was an open-ended agreement with no fixed maturity, and Gemini paid $24.2 million in borrowing fees in 2025. Gemini repledged the borrowed crypto assets to third-party lenders: $116.5 million with Galaxy DigitalGalaxy DigitalGalaxy Digital (Galaxy Digital Inc., Nasdaq and Toronto Stock Exchange: GLXY) is a New York-based digital asset financial services and data center infrastructure company founded by Mike Novogratz, which says it was founded in 2018. It provides institutional clients with digital asset trading, lending, investment banking, asset management, staking, and custody technology services, and is building data centers in Texas for artificial intelligence and high-performance computing.Open the full entry (at interest rates of 11% to 12% and collateralization of 145% to 155%) and a $75 million repurchase agreement with NYDIGNYDIGNYDIG is a U.S. power, computing-infrastructure and bitcoin company founded in 2017 within Stone Ridge Holdings Group. It developed institutional digital-asset custody, trading and financing services and focused on power, mining and HPC data centers after selling its institutional trading business to BitGo in 2026.Open the full entry (at an interest rate of 8.5%).⁠[35]

In SEC v. Genesis Global Capital, LLC et al. (Case No. 1:23-cv-00287), filed by the SEC in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on January 12, 2023, a joint stipulation filed on January 23, 2026, dismissed the civil enforcement action against Gemini Trust Company with prejudice. The SEC said this was an exercise of its discretion that took into account the 100% in-kind return of Gemini Earn investors’ crypto assets and related state and regulatory settlements, and noted that the dismissal does not necessarily reflect the Commission’s position in other cases. Genesis had settled with the SEC in March 2024, paying a $21 million penalty.⁠[37][38]

On February 4, 2026, Gemini’s board approved a restructuring plan: exiting the United Kingdom, the European Union, Australia, and other European jurisdictions while continuing to operate in the United States and Singapore; cutting up to 200 jobs, about 25% of the global workforce as of February 4, 2026, expected to be completed in the first half of 2026; and incurring about $11 million in pre-tax restructuring charges, mostly recognized in the first quarter. On February 5, Cameron and Tyler announced the restructuring in a blog post. Customer accounts in the affected markets entered withdrawal-only mode from March 5, 2026, and were fully closed on April 6; the prediction markets business had recorded more than $24 million in cumulative trading volume since launching in mid-December 2025.⁠[39][36]

On February 17, 2026, chief operating officer Marshall Beard, chief financial officer Dan Chen, and chief legal officer Tyler Meade departed effective immediately. Cameron assumed the chief operating officer’s responsibilities in addition to his existing duties; Danijela Stojanovic became interim chief financial officer and Kate Freedman interim general counsel; the company did not plan to name a successor chief operating officer for the time being.⁠[40]

On March 26, 2026, a securities class action was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (Case No. 26-cv-02261) against defendants including Gemini Space Station, Inc., Tyler Winklevoss, Cameron Winklevoss, Marshall Beard, and Dan Chen, covering a class period from September 12, 2025, to February 17, 2026. The plaintiffs allege that the defendants overstated the viability of the core business in the IPO documents, concealed plans to pivot to prediction markets while implying continued expansion of the international crypto exchange business, and failed to disclose the impending restructuring. The two price-drop events cited by the plaintiffs were February 5, 2026 (a share price decline of 8.72%) and February 17 (a decline of 12.9%); the lead plaintiff deadline was May 18, 2026. The above are the plaintiffs’ allegations.⁠[41]

On May 14, 2026, Winklevoss Capital Fund, LLC and affiliated parties (including Tyler and Cameron) subscribed in a private placement for 7,142,857 shares of Class A common stock at $14 per share, for a total of $100 million, paid in kind with about 1,258 bitcoin. After the transaction, they held 82,269,641 Class A shares on an as-converted basis, 65.1% of the Class A shares, including 75,126,784 Class B shares held by WCF (convertible one-for-one into Class A shares); at the same time, the registration rights agreement was amended, lowering the threshold for requiring a Form S-3 registration from $75 million to $50 million. The related Schedule 13D was filed on May 18, 2026.⁠[42]

On May 27, 2026, the CFTC and Gemini Trust Company filed a joint motion in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York asking the court to vacate the forward-looking provisions of the January 2025 consent order. After a comprehensive review, the CFTC concluded that the case should not have been brought and would not be brought under current enforcement standards, citing reasons including: the case relied heavily on statements from a whistleblower deemed to lack credibility; the investigation pursued Gemini, a victim of fraud, rather than the actual fraudsters; the quality of the evidence was questionable; one commissioner did not receive the evidentiary materials during the vote; litigation counsel asserted privilege, hindering Gemini’s access to evidence for its defense; and staff improperly used regulatory power to gain settlement leverage. The $5 million civil penalty remains in effect and will not be refunded.⁠[25]

In June 2025, Gemini had filed a complaint with the CFTC Office of the Inspector General, calling the case “lawfare.”⁠[43]

Gemini: Official website: https://www.gemini.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[44]

Winklevoss Capital: Official website: https://www.winklevosscapital.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[45]

X: Public account: https://x.com/winklevoss (opens in a new window).⁠[46]