Gemini co-founder Cameron Winklevoss called out Digital Currency Group CEO Barry Silbert in an open letter shared on Twitter.
In the letter, Winklevoss accused Silbert of engaging in “bad faith stall tactics” in relation to the $900 million DCG subsidiary Genesis owes to Gemini’s Earn users.
Earn Update: An Open Letter to @BarrySilbert pic.twitter.com/kouAviTho4
— Cameron Winklevoss (@cameron) January 2, 2023
The Gemini co-founder claimed that Silbert has repeatedly dodged getting in a room with Gemini executives on multiple occasions, despite several resolution proposals being put forth to DCG through the course of December.
“Every time we ask you for tangible engagement, you hide behind lawyers, investment bankers, and process,” said Winklevoss.
Winklevoss also took aim at Silbert for the $1.675 billion DCG owes to Genesis, which he believes is the money that Genesis owes to Earn users and other creditors.
“You took this money – the money of schoolteachers – to fuel greedy share buybacks, illiquid venture investments, and kamikaze Grayscale NAV trades that ballooned the fee-generating AUM of your Trust; all at the expense of creditors and all for your personal gain,” alleged Winklevoss.
Silbert responded to Winklevoss’s accusations on Twitter, denying that DCG had borrowed money from Genesis or missed an interest payment. In a letter to shareholders last month, Silbert said that DCG had a $575 million liability to Genesis due in 2023 and had borrowed these funds from its subsidiary in the ordinary course of business “in the same vein as hundreds of crypto firms.” He also explained that it owes $1.1 billion in a long-term promissory note due in June 2032, which it stepped in and assumed on Genesis’ behalf after Three Arrows Capital defaulted on a loan.
Silbert claimed that DCG had delivered a proposal to Genesis and Gemini on Dec. 29 and had not heard back from the Winklevoss-run firm.
There you go again. Stop trying to pretend that you and DCG are innocent bystanders and had nothing to do with creating this mess. It's completely disingenuous.
So how does DCG owe Genesis $1.675 billion if it didn't borrow the money? Oh right, that promissory note…
— Cameron Winklevoss (@cameron) January 2, 2023
“Will you, or will you not, commit to solving this by January 8th in a manner that treats the $1.1 billion promissory note as $1.1 billion?” said Winklevoss in a tweet to which Silbert is yet to respond.
Onlookers of the Twitter debate were divided in their opinions of who was in the right, but the majority largely agreed that both Silbert and Winklevoss should take responsibility for the money owed to users before hashing it out on social media.