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Last May, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, the twin Harvard graduates of Facebook fame, announced that they had made a $1.5 million investment in the firm through their VC firm Winklevoss Capital. The pair hopes to make BitInstant the premier destination for buying and selling bitcoins online.Instead, those dreams were dashed when regulators closed in on the burgeoning cryptocurrency. In June, the New York State Department of Financial Services issued a warning letter to BitInstant, requesting what by then was essentially a Bitcoin exchange to comply with regulations governing money transmission businesses.BitInstant suspended its services in July, just days after a class action lawsuit was filed that claimed the company made "false representation about its services and the inflated fees that it failed to refund as promised.” The company has remained offline since.By then, Shrem had become somewhat of a Bitcoin celebrity, having been featured in publications like Bloomberg Businessweek and was making regular media appearances including Good Morning America.“When we invested in BitInstant in the fall of 2012, its management made a commitment to us that they would abide by all applicable laws—including money laundering laws—and we expected nothing less,” a spokesperson at Winklevoss Capital told Motherboard over email. “Although BitInstant is not named in today’s indictment of Charlie Shrem, we are obviously deeply concerned about his arrest.”“I want Bitcoin to be my legacy." — Charlie Shrem
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