The Winklevoss Twins are going into outer space.

Tyler Winklevoss just posted on Twitter that he and his brother will be paying in bitcoin to ride Virgin Galactic into outer space.

They just put up a post explaining all about it. It's very heavy on symbolism.

Cameron and I have decided to use our bitcoin to take the plunge, or rather propulsion, into space. Why? Because Bitcoin and Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic are two technologies that meaningfully represent our focus at Winklevoss Capital - the reduction of pain-points and friction in an effort to build a better world.

Humans have a long tradition of exploring and forging new frontiers, both physically and metaphorically. In the Middle Ages, Marco Polo’s writings - which recounted his 24 years of travel and trade on the Silk Road – built a new and lasting level of economic and cultural awareness between Europe and Asia. 200 years later, they would inspire 15th century explorer Christopher Columbus to search for a shorter route to the Far East by sea. While Columbus did not achieve his original goal, he did manage to bring word of a new landmass back to Europe, which planted the seeds of hope and possibility in the minds of persecuted Pilgrims, who fled to and settled North America 100 years later. Such stories of inadvertent and iterated accomplishment are all too familiar in the spheres of exploration and innovation. They demonstrate how the building blocks of human discovery are not necessarily brilliance and perfection, but rather, the courage to fail and persistence to keep on trying.

By the early 16th century, Vasco da Gama would chart a maritime route from Europe to India via the Cape of Good Hope, while astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus would argue that the earth did not stand still, but instead revolved around the Sun and simultaneously its own axis. Ferdinand Magellan’s expedition would successfully circumnavigate the globe, confirming that the world was indeed round, not flat, and shepherd in an epoch of post-medieval thought.

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