As the cryptocurrency market plunges, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss have a message: “Don’t Stop Believin.’”
The twins — best known for accusing Mark Zuckerberg of stealing their idea for Facebook — covered the classic Journey tune at a New Jersey rock club last Thursday — just one week after laying off 10% of staffers at their cryptocurrency startup Gemini.
In a bizarre video of the gig posted to Twitter, Tyler belts out off-key vocals into a microphone while Cameron shreds on an electric guitar. The twins both sport slicked back, sweaty hair.
“Uh so i saw the winklevoss twins’ band?” wrote an attendee user who posted the video clip to Twitter, calling the show “by far one of the strangest and most tragically hilarious/infuriating things i’ve ever witnessed.”
The brothers also sold NFTs as band merchandise, according to the Twitter user who posted the video of the show at Asbury Park’s Wonder Bar.
In addition to Journey, the Winklevoss twins have also covered songs by Fall Out Boy, Blink 182, U2, Nirvana, Kings of Leon and The Killers, according to Page Six, which reported on their first show in Brooklyn last year.
Announcing last week’s layoffs, the crypto brothers cited difficulties related to “current macroeconomic and geopolitical turmoil” for forcing them to slash jobs for the first time since they founded Gemini in 2014.
“Today is a tough day, but one that will make Gemini better over the long run,” the brothers said in a note to employees while announcing the layoffs. “Constraint is the mother of innovation and difficult times are a forcing function for focus, which is critical to the success of any startup.”
The Gemini layoffs also came amid a lawsuit by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission accusing the company of making false and misleading statements concerning a bitcoin futures contract the firm was pursuing in 2017.
The brothers have also reportedly personally lost billions of dollars each during the ongoing crypto crash.
The twins’ band, called Mars Junction, has upcoming tour dates set for clubs in Los Angeles, Berkeley, San Diego, Denver, Las Vegas and the Hamptons, according to their website.
Gemini didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. A representative for the Winklevoss twins could not be reached.
–Additional reporting by Thomas Barrabi
[Written in collaboration with other media outlets with information from the following sources]
