According to Forbes’ cryptocurrency code rankings released on February 2, the top 11 people each currently own over $1 billion in assets. Forbes noted that the stock market gave investors enough laughter last year, but no one laughed louder than cryptocurrency holders. Currently, the total value of all digital currencies exceeds $1 trillion, quadrupling $250 billion in January 2020.
According to Forbes reports, the number one cryptocurrency code is Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, with an asset of $6.5 billion. Coinbase is one of the most popular cryptocurrency exchanges, processing approximately $3 billion of transactions every day. Armstrong, 38, founded an exchange in 2012 after working for Deloitte and Airbnb. He owns 20% of Coinbase shares as of December last year. According to recent reports, Coinbase plans to list directly on the NASDAQ.
The second place is Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of the FTX exchange with assets of $4.5 billion. Alameda Research, a cryptocurrency trading company established in 2017, manages assets of $2.5 billion, and in 2019 launched FTX, a cryptocurrency derivatives exchange. Most of his assets are FTX stocks and tokens (FTT).
Chris Larsen, one of Ripple’s co-founders, ranked third with $2.9 billion in assets. Larssen, 60, founded Eloan, an online lender in 1997, and eight years later, Prosper, a peer-to-peer lender. In 2012, he founded Ripple, a provider of blockchain technology and XRP tokens with Jed McCaleb. In December 2020, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) prosecuted Larssen on charges of selling undesired securities.
MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor, who became famous for investing in bitcoin in the second half of last year, ranked fourth with total assets of $2 billion. Last year, MicroStrategy used cash and loans to purchase a total of $1.1 billion (currently worth $2.5 billion) of bitcoin, and the company’s stock price rose more than 300%. Sailor personally bought 17,732 bitcoins (worth about $650 million) for a price of about $175 million.
The fifth place is Binance CEO Chang Feng Zhao, who is said to have an asset of $1.9 billion. A former software developer, he sold his home in Shanghai in 2014 and jumped into Bitcoin. It founded Binance Exchange in the summer of 2017, and in less than a year Binance has become one of the most popular cryptocurrency exchanges.
Tyler Winklevoss and Cameron Winklevos, founders of the U.S. exchange Gemini, have assets of approximately $1.6 billion, and the Gemini Exchange processes approximately $200 million of transactions daily. In addition to other digital assets, they own about 70,000 bitcoins.
DCG Group founder Barry Silbert has $1.5 billion in assets, and its subsidiary Grayscale manages $28 billion in Bitcoin, Ethereum and other assets. Grayscale is expected to generate annual sales of $590 million.
Ripple co-founder Jed McCaleb owns $1.4 billion in assets and has established three cryptocurrency companies in the meantime. In 2010 he founded the first major Bitcoin exchange, Mt. Gox, in 2012 he co-founded Ripple, and in 2014 he co-founded Stellar. Most of Macalup’s assets come from about 3.4 billion XRP tokens he still holds.
Tim Draper, founding partner of venture capital Drapper Fisher Jurvesson, has $1.1 billion in assets and has made hundreds of venture investments in a number of companies, including Tesla and Theranos. . In June 2014, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) closed down’Silkroad’, an internet site where drugs were traded, and put 29,656 confiscated bitcoins at auction. Currently, his cryptocurrency is worth 1.1 billion dollars.
Bitcoin evangelist Matthew Roszak has a $1 billion asset and started collecting cryptocurrencies in 2012. Currently, he is co-founder and chairman of Chicago blockchain technology startup Bloq, where he advises banks on helping banks secure digital assets.
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