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Over the past year, the equity market has given investors good reason to celebrate. However, the happiest are indeed the cryptocurrency holders. With a total value of $ 1 trillion, four times more than in January 2020 ($ 250 billion), the cryptocurrency market has exploded. Thus, Forbes set out to assess the fortunes of the wealthiest crypto-investors and entrepreneurs, taking into account both the value of their digital currencies, but also their interests in industry companies and their traditional assets. In all, 11 billionaires are benefiting from the boom in cryptocurrency.
Brian armstrong Net worth: $ 6.5 billion
One of the most popular platforms for buying and selling digital currencies is Coinbase, which he co-founded in 2021 after stint with Deloitte and Airbnb. In total, nearly $ 3 billion in currency is exchanged per day. Today, Coinbase is the largest cryptocurrency company in the United States. Brian Armstrong, 38 years old, owns 20% of the business. The latter is also moving towards an initial public offering of the direct listing type. Asked by Forbes about his reasons for entering the industry, the young entrepreneur replied that he wanted “the world to have a global and open financial system that allows freedom to innovate. "
Sam Bankman-Fried Net worth: $ 4.5 billion At just 28 years old,
Sam Bankman-Fried manages $ 2.5 billion in assets through Alameda Research, the digital currency quantitative trading company he founded in 2017. MIT graduate and former ETF trader on Wall Street, the young entrepreneur also created in 2019 FTX, a derivatives exchange in the cryptocurrency sector. He owes much of his wealth to FTX's equity and tokens.
Chris Larsen Net worth: $ 2.9 billion
60-year-old serial entrepreneur Chris Larsen co-founded Eloan in 1997. Eight years later, he founded Prosper peer-to-peer lender. His third project is the most important, but also the most controversial: Ripple. He co-founded the company with Jed McCaleb in 2012 to facilitate international payments for banks through blockchain and token chain (XRP) technology. In January 2018, the cryptocurrency bubble briefly boosted his fortune to over $ 17 billion. However, the price of XRP collapsed along with the rest of the market when the bubble burst later that year. In December 2020, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) takes legal action against Ripple and its founders. The latter are accused of having carried out an unregistered sale of securities. "The SEC is all wrong about the facts and the law," the company said in a statement.
Michael saylor Net worth: $ 2 billion
The CEO of software company MicroStrategy is one of the most famous leaders in the dot-com bubble. The American magazine People even named him in its ranking of the best parties. However, questionable accounting caused the company's financial results to plummet. The latter was also not spared by the explosion of the dot-com bubble, which caused its stock prices to plummet. So why is Michael Saylor on this list? There are two reasons for this presence. First, in December 2020, the MicroStrategy company announced that it had used its cash and borrowed $ 650 million to purchase 70,784 Bitcoin tokens worth $ 1.1 billion (today these tokens are worth $ 2.5 billion). This approach made it possible to increase the company's shares by more than 300%. Finally, Michael Saylor claims to have personally purchased 17,732 Bitcoin tokens worth around $ 175 million (today those tokens are worth around $ 650 million).
Changpeng Zhao (“CZ”) Net worth: $ 1.9 billion
The former software developer sold his Shanghai home in 2014 to invest everything in Bitcoin. In the summer of 2017, he created the company Binance, which within a year has become the most popular platform for trading cryptocurrencies. Since then, the company has developed many activities such as the creation of a venture capital fund, the mining of Bitcoins or the establishment of a debit card to spend cryptocurrency in Europe. The son of a teacher temporarily exiled from China, Changpeng Zhao made burgers at McDonald's and worked nights at a gas station to help support his family.
Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss Net worth: $ 1.6 billion
each These two twins, former Olympic rowers, are famous for suing Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, accusing him of stealing their idea of a social network. In 2012, the Winklevoss brothers used the $ 65 million, paid by the CEO of Facebook as part of the dispute settlement agreement, to build up Bitcoin stocks. Today, they still hold 70,000 Bitcoin tokens, in addition to other digital assets. In 2014, they co-founded Gemimi, a cryptocurrency trading company. Currently, $ 200 million worth of cryptocurrencies are traded on the platform every day.
Barry silbert Net worth: $ 1.5 billion
After selling the startup Second-Market, a stock trading platform, to Nasdaq in 2015, the Emory University graduate created Digital Currency Group, a conglomerate of five companies. Its biggest source of income comes from digital asset manager, Grayscale, which manages $ 28 billion worth of Bitcoin, Ether and other cryptocurrencies. Taking advantage of its preferred position as a first-mover in the industry, Grayscale was the first to obtain regulatory clearance to sell Bitcoin-backed securities to institutional or accredited investors. Now, the company's annual revenue is estimated at $ 590 million.
Jed mccaleb Net worth: $ 1.4 billion
An early supporter of cryptocurrencies, Jed McCaleb, 46, co-founded three companies specializing in this field. In 2010, he created Mt. Gox, the first major Bitcoin exchange company, which he sold a year later. In 2012 he co-founded Ripple, but he quickly left the company following disagreements with the other founders. Finally, in 2014, he co-founded Stellar ($ 4.8 billion in asset value), Ripple’s rival company, whose goal is to speed up cross-border payments. Most of Jed McCaleb's wealth comes from the nearly 3.4 billion XRP he has left of the 9 billion pocketed as the founder of Ripple. Prior to investing in digital currencies, the entrepreneur was known to have created the eDonkey2000 file sharing service. In 2006, sued by record companies for copyright infringement, the company was ordered to pay them $ 30 million under a dispute settlement agreement.
Tim draper Net worth: $ 1.1 billion
Descendant of a line of Silicon Valley investors and co-founder of venture capital firm Draper Fish and Jurvetson, Tim Draper has made hundreds of venture capital investments in companies such as Tesla and Theranos. In 2014, he purchased 29,656 Bitcoin tokens, confiscated by the U.S. Marshals after the Silk Road black market closed, for a value of $ 18.7 million ($ 62 per token). Currently, these tokens are worth $ 1.1 billion. "I bought other digital currencies along the way, but not enough to overtake the Winklevoss brothers," Tim Draper said in an email to Forbes, without elaborating on the details of his fortune: "I'd rather not not pass a thorough examination ”.
Matthew roszak Net worth: $ 1 billion
A long-time supporter of cryptocurrencies, Matthew Roszak worked in venture capital and as an entrepreneur (he was also sued for insider trading in 2006), before amassing a digital currency wallet from 2012. Today, he is the co-founder and chairman of Bloq, a Chicago startup specializing in blockchain technology, which provides advice on projects such as helping banks store digital currencies securely. Recently, Matthew Roszak took part in an initiative to give every member of Congress in the United States $ 50 in digital assets. This initiative has met with mixed success.
➡️ Invest and Trade on Binance and get a % of fees back
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