Meet The 5 Billionaires Cashing In On Bitcoin's
- 3 years ago
Meet The 5 Billionaires Cashing In On Bitcoin's
https://art.tn/view/239/en/meet_the_5_billionaires_cashing_in_on_bitcoins/
The stock market has given investors good reason to grin this past year, but none are smiling wider than the holders of cryptocurrencies. The combined value of all digital coins is north of $1 trillion, up fourfold from $250 billion in January 2020. Given the surge, Forbes set out to calculate the fortunes of crypto’s wealthiest investors and entrepreneurs, counting not just the value of their digital money but also their stakes in related businesses and traditional assets. The result: a record 5 billionaires.
Net worth: $1.9 billion
The former software developer sold his house in Shanghai in 2014 to go all in on Bitcoin. He launched Binance in the summer of 2017, and in under a year it became the most popular place to trade crypto. It has since launched business lines ranging from a venture capital fund and a Bitcoin mining operation to a debit card that lets you spend your crypto in Europe. The son of a professor who was temporarily exiled from China, he flipped burgers at McDonald’s and worked overnight shifts at a gas station to help cover household expenses
Net worth: $2 billion
The CEO of software firm MicroStrategy, he was one of the best-known executives of the Internet bubble—even making People magazine’s list of Most Eligible Bachelors. But questionable accounting led to a restatement of financial results, and the dot-com bust crashed his stock. Two big moves land him on this list: In December 2020, MicroStrategy announced that it used its cash and borrowed $650 million to buy 70,784 Bitcoins for $1.1 billion (now worth $2.5 billion), helping drive shares up more than 300%. Plus, Saylor says he personally snagged 17,732 Bitcoins for about $175 million (now worth about $650 million).
$2.9 billion
A serial entrepreneur, Larsen, 60, cofounded online lender Eloan in 1997 and, eight years later, peer-to-peer lender Prosper. This third bet has been the most valuable—and controversial: He cofounded Ripple with Jed McCaleb in 2012 to facilitate international payments for banks through blockchain technology and a token called XRP. In January 2018, the cryptocurrency bubble briefly pushed his fortune over $17 billion. However, XRP crashed with the rest of the market when the bubble burst later that year. Larsen was named a defendant in a December 2020 lawsuit brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission alleging that Ripple sold XRP to the public in an unregistered securities offering. “The SEC is completely wrong on the facts and law,” Ripple said in a statement
Net worth: $4.5 billion
At just 28 years old, Bankman-Fried manages $2.5 billion of assets through Alameda Research, the quantitative crypto trading firm he founded in 2017. An MIT grad and former Wall Street ETF trader, he also launched FTX, a crypto derivatives exchange, in 2019. The vast majority of his wealth is in FTX’s equity and tokens (FTT).
Net worth: $6.5 billion
His Coinbase is one of the most popular places to buy and sell crypto, processing about $3 billion in trades every day. Armstrong, 38, cofounded the exchange in 2012 after stints at Deloitte and Airbnb. It’s now the most valuable crypto business in America. Armstrong owns an estimated 20% of Coinbase, which in December filed confidentially to go public. Asked why he got into this business, the press-shy entrepreneur told Forbes: “I wanted the world to have a global, open financial system that
https://art.tn/view/239/en/meet_the_5_billionaires_cashing_in_on_bitcoins/
The stock market has given investors good reason to grin this past year, but none are smiling wider than the holders of cryptocurrencies. The combined value of all digital coins is north of $1 trillion, up fourfold from $250 billion in January 2020. Given the surge, Forbes set out to calculate the fortunes of crypto’s wealthiest investors and entrepreneurs, counting not just the value of their digital money but also their stakes in related businesses and traditional assets. The result: a record 5 billionaires.
Net worth: $1.9 billion
The former software developer sold his house in Shanghai in 2014 to go all in on Bitcoin. He launched Binance in the summer of 2017, and in under a year it became the most popular place to trade crypto. It has since launched business lines ranging from a venture capital fund and a Bitcoin mining operation to a debit card that lets you spend your crypto in Europe. The son of a professor who was temporarily exiled from China, he flipped burgers at McDonald’s and worked overnight shifts at a gas station to help cover household expenses
Net worth: $2 billion
The CEO of software firm MicroStrategy, he was one of the best-known executives of the Internet bubble—even making People magazine’s list of Most Eligible Bachelors. But questionable accounting led to a restatement of financial results, and the dot-com bust crashed his stock. Two big moves land him on this list: In December 2020, MicroStrategy announced that it used its cash and borrowed $650 million to buy 70,784 Bitcoins for $1.1 billion (now worth $2.5 billion), helping drive shares up more than 300%. Plus, Saylor says he personally snagged 17,732 Bitcoins for about $175 million (now worth about $650 million).
$2.9 billion
A serial entrepreneur, Larsen, 60, cofounded online lender Eloan in 1997 and, eight years later, peer-to-peer lender Prosper. This third bet has been the most valuable—and controversial: He cofounded Ripple with Jed McCaleb in 2012 to facilitate international payments for banks through blockchain technology and a token called XRP. In January 2018, the cryptocurrency bubble briefly pushed his fortune over $17 billion. However, XRP crashed with the rest of the market when the bubble burst later that year. Larsen was named a defendant in a December 2020 lawsuit brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission alleging that Ripple sold XRP to the public in an unregistered securities offering. “The SEC is completely wrong on the facts and law,” Ripple said in a statement
Net worth: $4.5 billion
At just 28 years old, Bankman-Fried manages $2.5 billion of assets through Alameda Research, the quantitative crypto trading firm he founded in 2017. An MIT grad and former Wall Street ETF trader, he also launched FTX, a crypto derivatives exchange, in 2019. The vast majority of his wealth is in FTX’s equity and tokens (FTT).
Net worth: $6.5 billion
His Coinbase is one of the most popular places to buy and sell crypto, processing about $3 billion in trades every day. Armstrong, 38, cofounded the exchange in 2012 after stints at Deloitte and Airbnb. It’s now the most valuable crypto business in America. Armstrong owns an estimated 20% of Coinbase, which in December filed confidentially to go public. Asked why he got into this business, the press-shy entrepreneur told Forbes: “I wanted the world to have a global, open financial system that