Gone are the days when billionaires are made by traditional trade. A new breed of wealth is being born thanks to cryptocurrency and its ecosystems, comprising a new array of players. Developers, investors and founders of coins and trading exchanges are disrupting multiple industries and creating new levels of wealth while at it, even if not all of them have fully disclosed the actual amounts of their virtual currencies.
To make an approximate gauge of the wealthiest in crypto, TradersofCrypto.com has compiled it’s Crypto Rich List, giving us a rough idea of individual hierarchy. The rankings are based on market valuations, trading volumes on top of holdings in cryptocurrency. While not completely to the T, this is the rough standing of the richest holders of cryptocurrency right now from Bitcoin to a host of other AltCoins.
Satoshi Nakamoto
No one really knows who Satoshi Nakamoto, aka the developer of Bitcoin, really is, but he/she/they is estimated to hold 1 million Bitcoins, which in today’s market translates to about $60 billion.
Sam Bankman-Fried
The founder of FTX exchange and trading firm Alameda Research is the richest person known in crypto, with a personal net worth estimated at $26.5 million. FTX was launched in 2019, built “by traders for traders’, and went on to become one of the leading exchanges to buy and sell crypto derivatives. It has raised $900 million from the likes of Coinbase Ventures and SoftBank in 2021, at an $18 billion valuation. This effectively makes Bankman-Fried one of the richest people under 30 in history.
Brian Armstrong
The Chief Executive of Coinbase Global, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States, boasts an estimated net worth of $14.7 million. Previously a software enginner with Airbnb, Armstrong co-founded Coinbase in 2012 with a former currency trader Fred Ehrsam, brought it public in a direct offering on NASDAQ in 2021, and quickly reached a market capitalization of $100 million. He owns a 19% stake in Coinbase.
Chris Larsen
The co-founder and chairman of crypto payment protocol Ripple and the cryptocurrency XRP has an estimated net worth of $6 billion. He stepped down as CEO in 2016 but still remains executive chairman of Ripple, which today counts American Express and Santander among its portfolio of customers.
Joseph Lubin
Not only is Lubin one of the founders of Ethereum, he is also the main hand behind the Consensys blockchain software that builds next-generation applications, launch financial infrastructures and access decentralized web. Hailing from Canada, Lubin also founded EthSuisse, which contributes to Ethereum and through which he works to extend on the capabilities of blockchain technology to store programmes in addition to data. He is also trying to use to facilitate, verify and enforce the negotiation and performance of smart contracts. His personal fortune is estimated to sit around the figures of $5 billion.
Changpeng Zhao
The founder of Binance, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges by trading volume, is said to have accumulated a personal fortune of over $5 billion. Previously a member of the team that developed Blockchain.info and once also the CTO of OKCoin, Zhao was placed by Forbes Magazine in third place on its list of ‘The Richest People in Cryptocurrency’ in 2018. Binance today has over 6 million users and just launched a token of its own (BNB) last year that runs on the Ethereum blockchain.
Winklevoss Twins
Twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss have come a long way since becoming known as the Olympic rowers who accused Mark Zuckerberg of stealing their idea for the social network. Today, they are the president and CEO respectively of cryptocurrency Gemini which they founded and which today processes about $200 million a day in trades. Additionally, the world’s first Bitcoin billionaires still own an estimated 70,000 Bitcoins, on top of other digital assets, which they bought with some of their $65 million legal settlement with Zuckerberg. They are estimated to own a personal net worth of $4.3 billion each.
Fred Ehrsam
The co-founder of Coinbase alongside Brian Armstrong is also the co-founder and managing partner of cryptocurrency investment firm Paradigm. The American business executive and investor has an estimated net worth of $3.5 billion.
Micree Zhan
He may be the co-founder who was ousted from the crypto mining giant Bitmain Technologies after a longstanding power struggle with his co-founder Jihan Wu, but Zhan remains its largest shareholders with an estimated person net worth of $3.2 billion. Bitmain is China’s largest digital currency mining company, specializing in sales of ASIC-chip miners.
Jed McCaleb
An early pioneer in the blockchain space, McCaleb helped launch three well-known crypto firms – Mt Gox in 2010, Ripple in 2012 and Stellar in 2014. A big portion of his wealth comes from the estimated 3.4 billion XRP he still holds, bringing his total estimated net worth to $3 billion.
