Charlie Shrem, the popular American entrepreneur and bitcoin advocate has
Charlie Shrem, the popular American entrepreneur and bitcoin advocate has been slapped with a lawsuit by the Winklevoss twins who claim that Shrem “stole” 5,000 bitcoins from them in 2012.
A New York Times report came out on the 2nd of November which claimed that the issue dates back to 2012 when Shrem worked with the Winklevoss twins on a project.
“Either Shrem has been incredibly lucky and successful since leaving prison, or — more likely — he ‘acquired’ his six properties, two Maseratis, two powerboats and other holdings with the appreciated value of the 5,000 Bitcoin he stole,” the NYT quotes the lawsuit as claiming.
Shrem served one year in jail post the project he worked on with the twins. he was convicted for facilitating drug purchasing using Bitcoin. His luxury cars, real estate and other expensive assets can be connected to the 5000 bitcoins that the twins claim that he stole.
Shrem had founded a company in 2011 that is now defunct. The company is called BitInstant and post its collapse, there isn’t much that Shrem was left with. Now the question that arises here is that how could he afford so much property and assets right after he came out of jail? He publicly claimed that he had spent several months as a dishwasher before joining crypto related activities.
Shrem’s lawyer has denied all the charges and claims that no bitcoins were stolen by his client. Brian Klein, a representative from Shrem’s legal team said,
“Winklevoss Capital Fund has brought an utterly baseless civil lawsuit against Charlie Shrem. The lawsuit erroneously alleges that about six years ago Charlie essentially misappropriated thousands of bitcoins. Nothing could be further from the truth. Charlie plans to vigorously defend himself and quickly clear his name.”
The twins had hired an investigator to look into the matter and he claimed that the transactions for the missing coins in question can easily be traced on the public ledger. Allegedly, they were sent to Shrem’s addresses and then sent into other wallet services.
The events of the lawsuit are yet to unfold. We will have to wait and see which way the tide turns.