Forbes’ ranking of crypto-billionaires has been updated with new names. Who has become the richest crypto enthusiast?
Forbes’ ranking of crypto-billionaires was updated the day before: the list was updated with new names of well-known industry representatives, as well as slightly changed due to capital fluctuations of previously included participants. Now there are 19 billionaires on the list, seven more than last year. However, no one has yet managed to surpass the achievements of last year’s favourite, the CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Binance, Changpen Zhao. We tell you more about the situation.
It should be noted that Forbes magazine regularly touches on the topic of cryptocurrencies. In particular, at the end of the year, representatives of the publication publish a ranking of the most successful young people in various fields, called Forbes 30 Under 30. For example, in December 2021, it included many representatives of the blockchain community. Read more about it in a separate article.
Who is the richest in the cryptocurrency world
Binance CEO and founder Changpen Zhao is still the richest man in the industry. According to Cointelegraph sources, the publication downgraded Zhao’s wealth from $96 billion last year to $65 billion currently. However, this still makes him the wealthiest person in the blockchain industry.
Binance CEO Changpen Zhao
Sam Bankman-Fried, founder and CEO of the FTX exchange, came in second place behind Chanpen, with an estimated wealth of $24 billion. He has been dubbed the “crypto-Robin Hood” as he has repeatedly stated that he wants to give away most of that fortune. For now, though, a significant portion of the amount stays with him, as it’s not easy to spend several billion at once.
FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried
CEO and founder of the largest US cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, Brian Armstrong is in third place in the ranking with a fortune of $6.6 billion. He is followed by Chris Larsen of Ripple and the Winklevoss twin brothers, who founded the Gemini exchange. Their capitals are almost equal and reach the $4 billion mark.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong
New to the list of crypto-billionaires is co-founder and CTO of the FTX exchange Gary Wang with a fortune of $5.6 billion – that’s his 16 per cent stake in the company. He was joined by Nikhil Viswanathan and Joseph Lau, co-founders of blockchain and Web3 company Alchemy. They each reportedly have a fortune of $2.4 billion.
Gemini founders Winklevoss brothers
The co-founders of an NFT token trading platform called OpenSea, Devin Finzer and Alex Atalla, are also new to this year’s list of crypto rich, as their fortune is estimated at $2.2 billion each. In addition, MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor, who is actively buying up bitcoins, is still on the list.
MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor
The process of cryptocurrency accumulation on its part continues: this week MicroStrategy, through its subsidiary MacroStrategy, announced another round of purchases of 4197 BTC totalling $190.5 million. The average price of this purchase round is $45,714. Thus, MicroStrategy already has 129,218 BTCs on its balance sheet with a total value of $3.97 billion at the current Bitcoin exchange rate.
The exchange rate of the main cryptocurrency itself has so far remained very profitable for the company. When all stages of coin accumulation are taken into account, their average price for MicroStrategy is $30,700. At the same time, today the market value of Bitcoin balances above the $43,000 mark.
Daily chart of Bitcoin exchange rate
As a reminder, the week before, MacroStrategy closed a $205 million loan secured against BTC from leading fintech and crypto-fiat gateway bank Silvergate. The company said it would use the loans to buy more BTC, while its own coin savings would serve as collateral for the loan, making it a complex leveraged transaction.
Ranking public companies by volume of bitcoins accumulated
Microstrategy has been investing in BTC since August 2020, acquiring the digital asset almost every quarter. This year, it was joined in the process of incremental bitcoin accumulation by Terraform Labs, which is "harvesting" $10 billion worth of coins to provide its own decentralised UST stackablecoin.
Note that the head of cryptocurrency exchange Binance, Changpen Zhao, reacted to the new ranking. He did so with a tweet.
Don’t worry about the wealth ranking – it’s just someone else’s opinion. Rather, focus on creating value for people and the platforms they will use.
Changpen Zhao, founder and CEO of Binance
We do think that rankings like these make sense. Firstly, they attract a lot of attention from people who have not yet connected with the cryptocurrency industry. Secondly, such comparisons clearly show what can be achieved in blockchain and decentralization. And this can act as additional motivation for existing entrepreneurs - including those outside the cryptocurrency niche.
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