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The Winklevoss twins - who are also Olympic rowers - are best known for taking Mark Zuckerberg to court in 2007, claiming he had stolen the idea for Facebook from their website, ConnectU, when they were at Harvard together.

Zuckerberg eventually agreed to a settlement of $20million in cash and $45million in shares to end the 'rancorous legislation' dramatized in award-winning film The Social Network.

But he always maintained Facebook didn't steal the idea. In January 2011 the twins attempted to re-open the deal, claiming it was unfair because Facebook withheld the true value of its shares - even though their settlement at the time was worth $160million.

A third classmate, Divya Narendra, was part of the settlement with the twins, but did not join them in trying to undo the agreement. 

In April 2011, the twins' case was thrown out with the judges stating that they were savvy enough to understand what they were agreeing to when they signed the settlement with Zuckerberg in 2008. 

The twins got a taste of their own medicine in May 2011 after a Massachusetts judge ruled a software developer could sue them for a slice of their $65million Facebook settlement.

Wayne Chang claimed he was entitled to as much as half the money because he developed peer-to-peer file sharing software for their website, ConnectU - and signed a contract giving him joint ownership.

He alleged the brothers blocked him from receiving the cash he was due. He developed his i2hub file-sharing software at around the same the brothers were working on ConnectU with business partner Divya Narendra - and, at least at the beginning, with Zuckerberg.

In the lawsuit, the developer claimed his 50 per cent share in the Winklevoss Chang Group meant he was entitled to half the $65million settlement - or if not, he was due 15 per cent because of the memorandum of understanding.

After almost a decade of wrangling, a Massachusetts appeals court ruled in April 2019 that Chang wasn't entitled to any of the $65million collected by the twins.

The pair revealed in July 2013 that they owned roughly one per cent of Bitcoins, which equated to about $11million.

In March 2014, the twins used Bitcoin to buy tickets for Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo rocket plane - which are valued at $250,000 each - as the 700th and 701st passengers.

Tyler wrote in a blog at the time: 'Cameron and I contemplate our tickets into space — as seed capital supporting a new technology that may forever change the way we travel.

'Purchased with a new technology that may forever change the way we transact.'