“ ‘You know the criticisms are just a failure of the imagination.’ ”

That’s what Tyler, one of the Winklevoss twins, had to say to the skeptics — and there are many — who fail to see the massive potential for bitcoin BTCUSD, +0.79% and the rest of the crypto space.

“Cryptocurrencies aren’t really important for human-to-human transactions... but when machines-to-machines trade economic value, they are going to plug into protocols like bitcoin and ethereum,” he explained to CNBC. “They are not going to open bank accounts at J.P. Morgan... those were invented by bankers before the internet existed. Trying to use them as payments or money on the internet is a square peg in a round hole at best.”