In a seemingly unforgiving market, there are clearly winners and losers. From early investors to industry entrepreneurs, let’s take a look at the ultra-wealthy blockchain winners grinning with satisfaction as they roll in the dough…or shall we say coins.
1. Chris Larsen – Age 57 – Net Worth $7.5 to $8 Billion – Ripple Cofounder
At the top spot, we have Chris Larsen, a San Francisco native known for co-founding well-known silicon valley startups such E-Loan and Prosper Marketplace. Right now, the business mogul owns 5.2 billion XRP and is attempting to grow Ripple through various partnerships in the blockchain world as its executive chairman.
2. Joseph Lubin – Age 53 – Net Worth $1 to 5 Billion – Ethereum Cofounder
Lubin is rumored to be holding around $10 billion worth of Ether and was one of the biggest investors in its crowdsale. However, he says he’s been slowly selling the coins to pay for the projects funding. Moreover, Lubin is the founder of ConsenSys, a roughly 600 employee blockchain software technology company with currently 6 offices in 5 countries.
3. Changpeng Zhao – Age 41 – Net Worth $1.1 to $2 billion – Binance CEO & Founder
In the summer of 2017, Zhao launched Binance, a once-obscure exchange which now serves over 6 million users. According to Forbes, it is currently the world’s largest crypto-exchange. While earning money from the site, Zhao is also said to be the main holder in the exchanges native digital asset Binance Coin (BNB), which has a total supply of nearly 200 billion BNB and trading for around $8 per coin.
4. Cameron & Tyler Winklevoss – Ages 36 – Net Worth $900 to $1.1 billion – Early Bitcoin Investors & Gemini Founders
People often remember the Winklevoss twins from their famous lawsuit with Mark Zuckerberg that inspired the movie “The Social Network”. With the millions they received from the settlement, they took some of those funds and invested them in Bitcoin during its infancy circa 2012. Now, they own the popular trading platform Gemini.
5. Matthew Mellon – Age 54 – Individual Investor – $900 to $1 billion – Individual Investor
Mellon is currently the Chairman of the New York Republican Party’s Finance Committee. A few years ago, he began investing in cryptocurrency and is rumored to have made his fortune by mostly investing his funds into the early stages of Ripple’s XRP.
6. Brian Armstrong – Age 35 – Net Worth $900 to $1 billion – Coinbase CEO
Founded by Armstrong in 2012 with headquarters in San Francisco, Coinbase is a dominating force in the global cryptocurrency exchange industry and one of the few exchanges that allow users to purchase crypto with fiat money.
7. Matthew Roszak – Age 45 – Net Worth $900 to $1 billion – Bloq Cofounder
8. Anthony Di Iorio – Age 43 – Net Worth $750 to $1 billion – Ethereum Cofounder
9. Brock Pierce – Age 37 – Net Worth $700 to $1 billion – Bitcoin Foundation Chairman
10. Michael Novogratz – Age 53 – Net Worth $700 to $1 billion – Galaxy Digital CEO
11. Brendan Blumer – Age 31 – Net Worth $600 to $700 million – Block.one CEO
12. Dan Larimer – Age 35 – Net Worth $600 to $700 million – Block.one CTO
13. Valery Vavilov – Age 38 – Net Worth $500 to $700 million – Bitfury CEO
14. Charles Hoskinson – Age 30 – Net Worth $500 to $6600 million – Ethereum Cofounder
15. Brad Garlinghouse – Age 47 – Net Worth $400 to $500 million – Ripple CEO
Born in Topeka, Kansas with an MBA from Harvard, Garlinghouse was the prior President of Consumer Applications at AOL and formerly the CEO and Chairman of cloud service firm Hightail. Now, Garlinghouse is CEO at Ripple and is said to hold a substantial amount of XRP coins.
16. Barry Silbert – Age 41 – Net Worth $400 to $500 million – Digital Currency Group CEO
17. Vitalik Buterin – Age 24 – Net Worth $400 to $500 million – Creator of Ethereum
The youngest member on this list at the ripe age of 24, Buterin proposed Ethereum in 2013, it had the crowdsale in 2014, and the technology went live in 2015. While the project sold 60 million tokens during the crowdsale, they kept 12 million for the team. At a value around $800 per token, its obvious Buterin is in good financial standings.
18. Tim Draper – Age 59 – Net Worth $350 to $500 million – Draper Associates Founder
Known as a prominent venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and a die-hard cryptocurrency enthusiast, Draper began investing in Bitcoin “before it was cool”. Draper is now looking to expand his love of blockchain to the public through the launch of the Draper Blockchain Intensive at Draper University in San Mateo, California.
19. Song Chi-Hyung – Net Worth $350 to $500 million – Upbit Founder
How Did These Men Make the List?
In order to make Forbes first-ever cryptocurrency rich list, these well-off digital currency backers needed to be worth a minimum of $350 million and obtained from the cryptocurrency industry. It should be noted that the net worths are estimations. To learn more about each investor listed, please visit the original article on Forbes.
This article is originally published at Coincentral.com
