The It List: These Are the World’s Richest Crypto Billionaires

According to an article published by CNBC on July 26, 2021, if you’d invested an amount of $1,000 in Bitcoin a year in July 2020, it would have been worth $3,525.6 on the date the article was published. If you’d done so five years before that date, it would have been worth $58,900.

If you’d done this ten years before that publication date, it would have been worth $2,785,737.50.

Considering all this, it likely comes as no surprise that crypto billionaires are out there.

If you’re wondering how to make money from crypto, it might help to learn about the wealthiest crypto billionaires.

We can’t promise that you’ll be rich by the end of this article, but with a bit of inspiration, you might feel ready to invest.

Ready to learn about the crypto investors who got the biggest bang for their buck? Read on to learn more.

Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss

If you’ve ever seen The Social Network, then you likely remember the twins from the film, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss—and how they lost the ownership of Facebook to Mark Zuckerberg. But before you start to feel sorry for them, it helps to remember that they’re rich.

When they lost Facebook in the lawsuit, Cameron and Tyler earned millions of dollars. With this money, they invested in cryptocurrencies.

When the late 2017 Bitcoin price surge occurred, this move made them the first crypto billionaires.

The estimated net wealth of these twins on the crypto billionaires list, according to Forbes, is $3 billion for each twin.

However, it’s important to note that most of the wealth these twins have comes from their cryptocurrency investments—but not all of it.

These twins are entrepreneurs, too, and they started the cryptocurrency exchange, Gemini. Using Gemini, cryptocurrency exchange, people can buy Ether and Bitcoin.

After its $400 million fundraise in 2021, the value of this exchange was $7.1 billion.

Additionally, the Winklevoss twins own Nifty Gateway, a platform for selling and buying NFTs or non-fungible tokens.

Changpeng Zhao

Another successful crypto billionaire is Changpeng Zhao, who also goes by CZ. Zhao founded Binance and is its CEO. This company claims to have a market share of 25% and is the largest of the crypto exchanges in the world.

As of early 2019, Binance had a daily trading volume of $500 million.

Zhao, who is 43 years old, has an estimated net worth of $2.6 billion.

Sam Bankman-Fried

Another crypto investor who became a billionaire is Sam Bankman-Fried. His ascent to having the status of a crypto billionaire has been quite fast. The MIT graduate, 29 years old, founded FTX back in 2019. This is one of the most popular cryptocurrency exchanges.

In April 2021, Forbes estimated it to have a worth of $8.7 billion.

The reason FTX stands out among competitors is that it offers a variety of products that are innovative and that aren’t available at other exchanges.

This variety of products includes pre-IPO contracts, digital tokens of stocks that are physical, and sophisticated derivatives.

When Bankman-Fried donated over $5 million to Joe Biden’s presidential campaign when the current U.S. President was running for the presidency in 2020, he generated headlines.

Additionally, this crypto billionaire from California is a vegan and refers to himself as an effective altruist.

By this, he means that he’s someone who maximizes the social impact he has over a great range of societal initiatives.

Bankman-Fried’s estimated worth is $22.5 billion. (Making him the wealthiest billionaire, since Mark Zuckerberg, under 30 (according to Forbes).

This is primarily because of the $900 million funding round for FTX, for a total company value of $18 billion.

Jihan Wu

Jihan Wu, who co-founded the company Bitmain with Micree Zahn in 2013, has a rocky relationship with his co-founder. We announced in January that he planned on leaving Bitmain because of the power struggle they were having.

Wu is 34 years old and has an estimated net worth of $1.8 billion.

Brian Armstrong

Another one of the wealthiest crypto investors who’s a billionaire is Brian Armstrong. He founded Coinbase, the biggest cryptocurrency exchange in North America by trading volume. In 2012, after he quit his software engineer job at Airbnb, he co-founded this exchange.

He has a stake of 19% in this exchange, which Forbes estimated, in December 2021, to have a worth of $10.9 billion.

As for Armstrong’s worth, his net worth was reported to be $10.2 billion by Bloomberg at the same time.

Because of its credibility and ease of use, people consider Coinbase the gateway for joining the crypto ecosystem for retail investors.

However, the exchange has had to deal with many issues. For example, when they attempted to scale their operations when crypto volatility was a problem, they experienced trading halts.

This exchange went public in 2021, in April. On December 3, 2021, at the close of trading, the exchange’s total market capitalization was $69.57 billion.

Armstrong said he started this exchange because he wanted a financial system that was open, global, and that drove freedom and innovation.

As a result of his involvement in the cryptocurrency industry, Armstrong’s net worth, estimated, is $11.5 billion.

Mingxing Xu

Mingxing Xu, the founder of OKCoin, is 34 years old and has an estimated net worth of $1.4 billion. OKCoin is a trading platform for Bitcoin that’s globally oriented. Xu was arrested in October 2020 and then released in November.

This arrest was related to Xu’s business, though he didn’t publicize why.

Barry Silbert

Barry Silbert, who founded DCG (Digital Currency Group) and is its Chief Executive Officer, has a net worth, according to Forbes, of $1.6 billion. The mission of this company is to accelerate global financial system development.

The company does this by supporting and building blockchain and Bitcoin companies.

Through Digital Currency Group, Silbert has broadened his reach across a variety of industries.

One of these industries is media. Back in January 2019, DCG acquired CoinDesk. CoinDesk is a leading Bitcoin News source that runs the yearly industry conference in Bitcoin, Consensus.

DCG owns Genesis, too. Genesis is a company that’s focused on investing in digital currency.

Additionally, Silbert started the GBTC or Bitcoin Investment Trust. This is an EFT that tracks Bitcoin’s price.

The total AUM (assets under management) number Grayscale has gone up to more than $20 billion in the pandemic period.

JP Morgan analysts have said, even, that the holdings the trust has are essential when determining the price of Bitcoin.

Silbert has ended up with a nickname, “The King of Crypto,” because he has invested in over 100 blockchain- and Bitcoin-related companies.

Li Lin

Another crypto billionaire is Li Lin. Li Lin is the founder of Huobi, one of China’s three major exchanges and the leading platform for trading digital currency globally, based in Seychelles.

Li Lin’s age isn’t known. However, his estimated net worth is $1.1 billion.

Michael Saylor

Many unconventional investors are attracted to Bitcoin. However, none of them have had the enthusiasm or zeal of Michael Saylor, the SEO of MSTR (MicroStrategy Incorporated), a software firm.

This firm started to acquire cryptocurrency in August 2020 by buying Bitcoin worth $250 million.

When this occurred, the firm said it was buying this cryptocurrency to use the cash holdings on its balance sheet better.

Over time, MicroStrategy has become a Bitcoin supporter (fiercely so) and has appeared in cryptocurrency conferences and on the news to evangelize the uses cases and benefits of Bitcoin.

By 2021, this company had increased the Bitcoin holdings it had to $3.5 billion in December. In addition, when price dips in cryptocurrencies have occurred, the company has swooped in and bought them.

This strategy has served both Saylor and his company well.

As of 2021, in December, the stock price of MicroStrategy has gone by a percentage greater than 337% since it announced its acquiring of Bitcoin.

Jed McCaleb

Jed McCaleb was a co-founder of Stellar and Ripple, but that’s not all. McCaleb also launched Mt. Gox, the first Bitcoin exchange that was major. He sold it before it then was hacked. The estimated net worth of Jed McCaleb is $3 billion.

Fred Ehrsam

Along with Brian Amstrong, Fred Ehrsam co-founded Coinbase. In 2017, Ehrsam left this exchange. Now, he works for Pardadign, a crypto investment firm. His net worth, estimated, is $3.5 billion. His worth has gone up because of his involvement in crypto.

Chris Larsen

Chris Larsen co-founded Ripple and was also its chairman. Ripple is a crypto payment protocol used by some of the biggest banks in the world, such as Santander and American Express. He was on this list back in 2020, when his net worth was $2.7 billion.

Now, his net worth is $6 billion, meaning that his net worth has become so great that it more than doubled in one year.

Larsen, last year, was the only cryptocurrency billionaire who was featured on the wealthiest list released by Forbes.

In addition to being successful with Ripple, which makes it possible for people to complete payments internationally with blockchain technology, Larsen has co-founded several startups in Silicon Valley.

In part due to his successes with these startups, he had the money he now has.

Micree Zahn

Micree Zahn is the co-founder of Bitmain, the largest company for cryptocurrency mining in the world. Here he’s made his fortune. Even though he was ousted from the company in 2019, he’s bought shares from the other shareholders.

As a result of these shares, Zahn has claimed back the CEO’s status.

At 41 years old, the estimated net worth is $3.2 billion.

Satoshi Nakamoto

Another crypto billionaire is Satoshi Nakamoto, the person who developed Bitcoin. Of course, this isn’t their real name, but this is the name we’ll use for this list. Nakamoto, according to estimates, has 1 million Bitcoins.

In case you’re counting, that’s around $34.9 billion, making them the richest person in the crypto world by far.

Matthew Roszak

Another crypto billionaire is Matthew Roszak. At 48 years old, his estimated net worth is $1.2 billion. He is the chairman and co-founder of Bloq. Bloq is a blockchain technology startup in Chicago, which is one of the reasons Roszak has collected wealth.

However, Roszak has also been collecting crypto for a while since 2012. 

Tim Draper

At 62 years old, Tim Draper has a net worth of $1.1 billion. Draper is Draper Associates and Threshold’s founding partner, a venture capitals firm. Draper was an early advocate of Bitcoin, so he paid $6 for a single Bitcoin worth $250,000.

Want to Learn More About Crypto and Crypto Billionaires?

Now that you’ve learned about the world’s richest crypto billionaires, you might want to know more about crypto. Maybe you want to learn more about the companies that have made these investors successful or about their journeys.

Whatever information you need, we can help. At Byte Federal, we’re experts in the cryptocurrency world.

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