It should be noted that the news of Genesis’ bankruptcy did not come as a big surprise to the cryptocurrency community. The fact is that the Gemini Earn program was suspended due to Genesis’ problems back in November 2022, and it hasn’t resumed since then.

Moreover, in December, Forbes estimated the fortune of Digital Currency Group CEO Barry Silbert at $0. The reason was that DCG debts tentatively exceeded the value of the assets at its disposal.

Head of Digital Currency Group Barry Silbert

What’s going on with the Genesis platform

The second largest creditor of Genesis is Singapore-based Mirana Corp. The bankrupt platform owes it $151.5 million. A subsidiary of Mirana Corp. called Mirana Ventures has invested heavily in the industry. Specifically, it has invested in blockchain-based gaming startup Animoca Brands, Etherium scaling project Matter Labs and other teams.

Mirana Corp. was also embroiled in the story of the collapse of the legendary cryptocurrency fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC), which was founded by Soo Joo and Kyle Davies. The bankrupt crypto fund owed the company about $13 million, causing a court case to be opened against it.

Genesis bankruptcy filing

The third creditor ranked by debt size is Moonalpha Financial Services Limited, according to Decrypt. It now has a $150 million hole in its balance sheet because of Genesis’ debt. In fourth position is hedge fund Coincident Capital, which Genesis owes about $112 million.

Startup Donut, which is working on its own decentralised app, was the fifth largest creditor with about $78 million in debt. Due to Genesis’ problems, Donut’s lending operations suffered the same fate as Gemini Earn: in November 2022, the company stopped withdrawing users’ funds, leaving the latter unable to reach their own assets.

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As a reminder, Gemini Earn was Gemini Crypto Exchange’s programme that allowed customers to earn as much as eight per cent on their deposits in digital assets, an extremely attractive figure given the tiny bank interest on deposits in Western countries. Back in November 2022, withdrawals from Earn became more difficult, and by mid-January, the program ceased to exist altogether. All of this occurred against the backdrop of Genesis’ prolonged financial difficulties.

According to Decrypt’s sources, the connection between the two entities is not coincidental: Genesis and Gemini entered into a partnership that placed a significant responsibility for handling deposits from Earn’s customers on the bankrupt platform’s shoulders. To be more specific, the funds in Gemini Earn’s feed were sent directly to Genesis, with only that company generally able to interact with that Gemini program. Already in January, the Winklevoss brothers, founders of Gemini, said that Genesis owed Gemini about $900 million.

Around the same time, they launched a public campaign against Barry Silbert, the head of Digital Currency Group, which is the parent company of Genesis. Cameron Winklevoss’ calls were quite radical: he claimed that Silbert should resign because of his own incompetence, since he had trivially ignored the loss of 1.2 billion dollars which led to the giant’s current problems. Naturally, Silbert denies all public accusations against him.

Gemini cryptocurrency exchange executives the Winklevoss brothers

Now it’s also been revealed that Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss are willing to go even further: they will sue DCG if the company doesn’t pay back their Genesis debt. That’s what Cameron Winklevoss’ latest tweet is all about.

If Barry and DCG don’t come to their senses and make a fair offer to creditors, we will be filing a lawsuit against Silbert and DCG shortly.

The Wicklevoss brothers already have a successful track record of suing. They were the ones who sued Mark Zuckerberg over the idea of the social network Facebook. They ended up winning $65 million in company stock and cash.

Cameron Winklevoss’ tweet

The Winklevoss brothers describe the Genesis bankruptcy filing as a “crucial step” towards recovering the loan, as the firm “will be under judicial scrutiny and will be required to provide information about the fraud that led up to this point”. The entrepreneurs also stressed that “the Genesis bankruptcy decision does not shield Barry, DCG and any other wrongdoers from liability”.

Amusingly, at the same time, Genesis owes the equivalent of $1.65 billion to Digital Currency Group itself.


We believe the current situation is a continuation of the cleansing of the cryptocurrency industry of ineffective players. Obviously, Genesis has indeed been hit hard by the collapse of crypto fund Three Arrows Capital, with the company's actions resulting in the loss of funds to Gemini Earn users among other things. And ideally there should be no such close and negative correlation between different companies. It is to be hoped that the next bullrun in the industry will have fewer such problems, as they also hurt the reputation of the market and discourage new investors.