Bitcoin Billionaires

by Ben Mezrich

  Charlie tried not to stare directly at the judge; Charlie was barely holding it together, and if he matched eyes with the man, he knew he was liable to burst out in tears. He also avoided turning around. Behind him, the overcrowded pews of the courtroom were crowded. Walking in with his lawyer, the ankle bracelet humming against his ankle, he had seen that every seat was filled.

  On one side was his family—not just his immediate family, but seemingly the entire Orthodox Syrian-Jewish community of Brooklyn had also come out to see the show. Just two rows back, his mother, father, and sisters, and behind them, he’d seen his rabbi, his next-door neighbor, his childhood eye doctor, and his orthodontist. There to—support him? Condemn him? Bear witness?

  On the other side of the room were Courtney and her parents. Even in the packed room, he could still hear her sobbing. And the rest of that side of the gallery was filled out with other secular supporters, mostly from the world of Bitcoin. People who had worked at BitInstant, colleagues from the various conferences he’d attended, fans. Maybe “secular” wasn’t the right word—many of his Bitcoin supporters were as religious in their own way, as fundamentalist in their beliefs as the Orthodox black hats on the opposite side of the aisle.

  Charlie knew the audience didn’t matter. They may have been gathered by his bedside, but they couldn’t affect what was about to happen. You were born alone, you died alone.

  And you were sentenced alone.

  Charlie’s lawyer touched his arm, signaling that things were about to begin. The look in his lawyer’s eyes was supposed to be encouraging; they had gone over the possibilities again and again in the days leading up to this moment, and they had both agreed that actual jail time was unlikely. After all, the court’s case had come down to a handful of stupid emails. Even though Charlie had admitted he had been an idiot and allowed a reseller to buy bitcoin to use on Silk Road for illegal drugs, he wasn’t a money launderer or a drug dealer himself. You could almost say he’d done the opposite of money laundering; he had foolishly dirtied money, rather than made it clean.

  He’d committed a crime, but he didn’t believe he deserved to rot in some jail cell. He had pled guilty because he knew that he was in the wrong, and because it was too risky and expensive to fight the charges in court, but he didn’t deserve to be sent away to some hole.

  After a brief introduction, his lawyer got the chance to speak first. As he and Charlie had discussed, he was asking for a probationary term—something they felt fit the crime.

  “He’s only a twenty-five-year-old person,” went his lawyer’s argument. “So I don’t know that he gets to be a Greek tragic hero, but he hurt himself tremendously, tremendously. Because he had it made. He found a way. He has mixed feelings about his small, Brooklyn neighborhood, but he was out, and he was attached to this wonderful idea, and all he had to do was guard it with his life, and he didn’t.… I don’t think we need a jail sentence to send a message to Charlie Shrem that what he did is bad and wrong and illegal.”

  It sounded right to Charlie, and a quick glance toward the judge told him that he was at least listening, but then the prosecutor rose for his response.

  “The defendant was essentially facilitating drug trafficking,” Turner started, and Charlie’s stomach churned. It sounded so vile and wrong—and yet, he knew, at least technically, it was absolutely correct.

  “He was moving drug buy money. I know it doesn’t look like the usual drug-trafficking case.… It’s online, rather than on the street. These are digital drug deals, but he’s moving drug money nonetheless.”

  Correct—but still, Charlie believed, unfair. Because what he was doing—helping people get bitcoin—was, at its heart, something good, something that he believed was making the world a better place. Offering a form of freedom.

  Or was that just Roger Ver and some of Erik Voorhees in his mind again? He didn’t know anymore what to think.

  Finally, the judge gave Charlie a chance to speak for himself.

  Trembling, he tried to put what he was thinking into words. He knew he was rambling; he was scared, but his family, his whole upbringing really, was behind him, watching.

  “I screwed up really bad, Your Honor. My attorney and Mr. Turner were correct in saying that I was given a responsibility and I failed myself and my community, my family, and the Bitcoin community as a whole.”

  He could hear a rustle of noise behind him, but he plowed forward, his thoughts coming faster, maybe even a little too fast.

  “You know, you see the movie Spiderman when you are younger and one of the only quotes that you kind of remember from that is with great power comes great responsibility, and I always would watch that and said what does that mean—when you have great power, where does that come from.”

  He was riffing now but he didn’t stop himself. Here was his chance to speak, after a year of pure hell. Trapped in that basement by the ankle bracelet and the bail money—bail which his parents continually threatened to pull, especially when they caught him speaking to Courtney.

  “When you’re in a powerful position, when you’re in a position of power, it’s a lot harder to stay responsible to yourself and stay morally responsible. It’s a lot easier when there’s nothing riding on you. And I failed that. I was very young. I was twenty-two and I was the CEO and I was the compliance officer.… It was just me and my partner running this out of our basement.”

  His lawyer shifted in the seat next to him, and Charlie knew he had to get control, reel himself in, but he wasn’t done. He had an audience and somewhere there had to be a microphone and god damn it, he was going to speak.

  “I broke the law and I broke it badly, and I’m really sorry for doing that, and I’m sorry for failing you and failing this country, but I cherish so much and I want to change the world and I’m trying to … I was a kid and I want to be that person that is remembered for even doing one little thing to change the world.…”

  He looked right at the judge. He was saying everything he needed to say.

  “Bitcoin is what I love and all I have. It’s my whole life. It’s what I’m on this Earth to do, is to help the world see a financial system that does not discriminate and provide for corruption, and I think that Bitcoin will do to money what email did to the postal service. It allowed everyone to be equal. People in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, will have the same opportunities now with Bitcoin, and because of this now, because you can move money instantly and information on a peer-to-peer system. And I think that’s really important. And if Your Honor grants me that, I’d love to be back out there healing the world and making sure people don’t do stupid things like I did.”

  Charlie paused—it sunk in that the whole room was staring at him. The judge, his lawyer, the prosecution, his family, the Bitcoiners present. He swallowed, then slowly lowered himself to his seat.

  “And again, I’m sorry.” He coughed.

  There was another pause, as the judge peered down at him.

  And then, finally, it was time. After a brief statement, telling Charlie that indeed he was brilliant, maybe too smart for his own good, thinking too far ahead, not paying attention to what was in front of him; that he was young enough that he would go on and assuredly do great things—then, the judge made his decree.

  “The court thinks that the appropriate sentence is two years. Accordingly, the defendant will be sentenced to two years in prison.”

  And suddenly, the courtroom seemed to recede down a long tunnel, and Charlie was shrinking into somewhere very small. He could hear his mother crying on one side and Courtney crying on the other, and then shouts of defiance from some Bitcoin supporters, and then his lawyer was whispering something to him, how he’d only serve 85 percent of the sentence, how for part of it they would send him to a halfway house, where he could get a job, something simple like washing dishes in a restaurant. How he would be okay, he would make it, when he got out he would still be a young man, in his twenties. How he didn’t need to be scared.

 
And Charlie looked at him, and then he was back out of the tunnel, he was himself again, because he realized that for the first time since his arrest, he didn’t feel scared. He felt—relieved.

  For nearly a year he’d been locked in his basement, drinking and smoking and being dragged to temple every Saturday, strapping on tefillin every Thursday. Sneaking phone calls to Courtney when he could to keep his sanity. Hell, he’d even Skyped into a Bitcoin conference or two, railing and raving at his computer screen with a Bluetooth microphone hanging from his ear that the court-ordered bracelet was heavy on his ankle. When he’d watched the videos afterward, he’d been shocked at how insane he’d looked. But that period in his life was over now.

  He was going to prison. After that, he’d wash some dishes or mow lawns or whatever it took.

  He’d get back on his feet and then he’d get back into Bitcoin. Because what he’d just told the judge, they weren’t just words, they weren’t just him pleading for his life. They were from his soul. Maybe that’s why he felt so good right now. Bitcoin was his life. He was going to prison—for selling Bitcoin. Well, at the end of the day, he could handle that. And then he would begin again.

  Behind him, his parents had reached the wooden rail that separated the audience from where he was sitting. They were trying to reach him: crying, calling his name. But he didn’t look their way. Instead, he turned to his lawyer.

  “Can we please make everyone leave the room? Except Courtney.”

  His lawyer signaled to the marshalls and they agreed to the request. The uniformed officers had to actually physically lead Charlie’s mother and father away. Soon, it was just Charlie in the defendant’s pit, Courtney holding him.

  “It’s going to be okay,” he said while she cried. “We’re going to be okay.”

  And the best part was he knew it was true. And then he hugged her—and the tears filled his eyes.

  30

  LAUNCHED

  It was the last week of August, the middle of the afternoon, and Cameron was wading through a postapocalyptic moonscape. His sneakered feet raised clouds of fiery dust as he moved over the sun-hardened playa. He was wearing cargo shorts and little else; the air was so hot he could see it through his sunglasses—really, oversize goggles that would have been appropriate for either welding or skiing—the oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon molecules shimmering in swirls around his head. The temperature was somewhere between ninety and infinity, yet Cameron didn’t care; he hadn’t stopped smiling since the tiny, single-engine Cessna puddle jumper had dumped him and his brother on the makeshift landing strip at the far reaches of the impromptu desert city. The scene around him may have been postapocalyptic, but it was the friendliest apocalypse he could have imagined.

  “It’s spectacular, isn’t it,” Tyler said as he stepped off of a dirt-crusted bicycle and joined Cameron on the playa. He was wearing shorts too, and some sort of Mad Max–inspired vest, with his goggles up on his head.

  Tyler could have been talking about any number of things. The desert itself, 300,000 acres of flat playa and lava beds in the northern part of Nevada, surrounded by mountains and hills. Or he could have been referencing “Black Rock City,” the pop-up community that had sprung up—as it did every year at the end of August—around where they were standing, a work of art and planning and genius, laid out like a large clock, with twelve smaller clocks inside, concentric circles, each one with an equally smaller radius than the previous one, like a Russian nesting doll. Or he could have meant the thousands of camps sprouting right out of the desert floor, covering every conceivable clock position in between the edge of the largest clock and that of the smallest one, starting from 2:00 P.M. and moving clockwise all the way around to 10:00 P.M.—camps that ran from spartan tents, domes, and yurts, to elaborate, fantastical constructs that housed dozens of people. Or he could have been speaking about the art installations and sculptures springing up next to the camps—some of them camps themselves—things like pyramids or crashed UFOs or giant carcasses of retired jumbo airliners. Geometric constructs, statues, temples, polyhedrons. Or the art cars that slowly rolled around the desert clock, hundreds of Pac-Man–like organisms moving through the organized maze of camps, mutant vehicles ranging from mobile boom boxes, pirate ships, and sharks, to steam trains, hotrods, dragons, and fire-breathing octopuses. At night, some camps were lit by strings of lights or panels of LEDs, some strafed the night with flashing strobes and laser beams, while some glowed fluorescent and others possessed fire-breathing torches and fire pits. Altogether, they transformed this barren, inhospitable desert flat into a Technicolor phantasmagoria.

  Or he could have been talking about The Man himself, rising up in the center of it all, towering like a humanoid skyscraper, forty feet tall, made entirely of wood, with kindling stacked by each massive foot. Eventually, The Man would be set on fire toward the end of the one-week festival, a tradition that gave this place its name and symbolized one of the main principles of the gathering: “Radical self-expression.” To many of the seventy thousand people populating the desert around Cameron, known as “Burners,” it was an annual pilgrimage or raison d’être that bordered on being religious.

  And nearby to the Burning Man was the Temple, a spiritual structure that housed the “Soul” of the Man. A cathartic wooden sanctum, where people left photos and notes and inscribed messages written to themselves, to loved ones, or sometimes to no particular person at all, just anyone passing by. They contained advice, wisdom, joy, happiness, gratitude, inspiration, heartbreak, heartache, loss, trauma, pain; the entire range of deep inner emotions and experiences that cut to the core of what it meant to be a human, experiencing life on this earth with all of its vicissitudes. The Temple was one of the only places on the playa that was quiet. A place where you could hear your own thoughts in between the delicate sound of whispers, faint sobs, and human embrace. And perhaps your own tears. An emotional journey, at times overwhelming, that left you with an intense sense of gratitude and inner peace. When the Temple burned on the last day of the festival, it unlocked all of its emotional content in a release, a rebirth, so powerful, so spiritual, that it helped assuage the grief and begin the healing process, closing a chapter to begin anew.

  Cameron wasn’t exactly sure what had brought Tyler and him to Burning Man that summer; a friend’s invite, an escape from East Coast humidity, pure curiosity—but he was glad they’d come. No matter who you were when you headed to that desert, the atmosphere could change you; even if the change was momentary, it was something worth experiencing.

  They were staying in the “Lost Lounge,” a conglomerate of canvas, tentlike cubes stacked together, a sort of makeshift desert motel. Inside, in different cubes, there was a DJ booth, a shared kitchen, dance areas, and simple places to hang out and do whatever you felt like doing.

  Located at eight o’clock on the innermost of the twelve clocks—known as Airstrip—the Lost Lounge was a fifteen-minute walk, or shorter bike ride, from where they were strolling now: the other side of the Esplanade, the vast, dusty center or face of all the clocks, where the Man himself stood, right in the middle, the shaft that anchored the imaginary clock hands of this sprawling desert sundial known as Black Rock City. For the moment, Cameron was content to wander along the edge of the Esplanade and Airstrip, stopping every once in a while to venture down the radial streets and alleys that cut across all of the clocks at fifteen- and thirty-minute intervals and explore some of the thousands of camps that covered this desert timepiece. Having nothing to do, and nowhere to be, was a large part of Burning Man’s charm.

  As they walked they passed groups of other Burners doing the same thing, men and women of all ages, anywhere from late teens into their seventies, dressed—and in some cases undressed—in costumes to fit the scenery. Leather, feathers, goggles, straps, chains, boots, gloves, hats—the sort of fashion show you’d expect to see moments before the end of the world.

  As Cameron continued clockwise around the Esplanade, he caught sight
of another group coming toward them. A half dozen young people, mostly shirtless, in shorts, covered in dust. As they passed, one of the Burners in the group suddenly stopped and looked at Cameron and his brother.

  “Excuse me, I don’t mean to interject,” he said, a little formally. “But are you the Winklevoss twins?”

  A question they’d heard so many times, it had become almost background noise. The Burner had a boyish face, curly dark hair, cherubic cheeks. Cameron didn’t think he recognized the guy, but he seemed to be about Cameron and Tyler’s age, maybe a little younger, but then again, in playa garb, covered in dirt, Cameron might not have recognized Tyler if he wasn’t standing right next to him.

  “We sure are,” Cameron said.

  “Um, wow. Cool. I’m Dustin Moskovitz.”

  If Cameron didn’t know the face, he certainly knew the name. Moskovitz had cofounded Facebook with Mark Zuckerberg, and had been his number two until he’d left the company in 2008 to start his own business, Asana, a software-service company that helped teams work more efficiently. Forbes had named Moskovitz the youngest self-made billionaire in history, because he was eight days younger than Mark Zuckerberg and owned more than 2 percent of Facebook.

  They had attended Harvard together but had traveled in very different circles. Cameron had never met Moskovitz and wouldn’t have been able to pick him out of a lineup. That said, Moskovitz had been personally named as a defendant in their lawsuit and had no doubt followed its progress, like much of the world, as it wound its way through the legal system for years. Cameron knew Moskovitz and Zuckerberg were close, and that there was a good chance he viewed him and Tyler as adversaries, maybe even mortal enemies. Maybe Moskovitz had been merely a bystander, swept up in the legal tornado, and not a party to any of duplicitous actions of Zuckerberg. Nonetheless, it was likely that he shared Zuckerberg’s version of the Facebook origin story rather than their own.