Bitcoins and The Winklevoss Twins

 The Winklevoss twins, known for  alleging that Facebook Inc (FB.O) founder Mark Zuckerberg stole their website idea, are planning to  give investors exposure to the value of digital currency Bitcoins.

Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust, 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. Bitcoins are a form of electronic money that is not managed by a single company or government. A bitcoin is essentially a secret number that can be transferred to another computer using public-key cryptography. A bitcoin has a private key that if unencrypted allows the coin to be sent to another computer using peer-to-peer software. A bitcoin transaction is seamless and fairly quick, but since the private key is often stored on a person’s computer or with a web-based service, hacking remains a real risk. 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. Many say the currency is 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.