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A crypto billionaire is someone who has made more than $1 billion in net worth either through crypto businesses or through crypto investments. What sets them apart is the courage they have shown in taking the risk of entering a budding sector struggling due to numerous challenges, including extreme volatility and regulatory uncertainty.
2024 has been an eventful year for the crypto industry. The cryptocurrency market has witnessed a growth of approximately 99.4% since the start of this year. Notably, the political climate in the United States has shifted in favour of the industry. Moreover, the top crypto by market cap, Bitcoin, achieved the milestone of $100K. Experts believe that the crypto industry will experience tremendous growth.
Certainly, many crypto businessmen and investors have seen exponential growth in their wealth this year.
Any conversation about the above naturally brings up an interesting question: Who are the top ten crypto billionaires right now?
Here is the list of the top ten cryptocurrency billionaires:
Changpeng Zhao
With a net worth of $65.4B, Changpeng Zhao remains as the topmost name on the list of the top ten crypto billionaires in 2024. In the early stage of his career, he worked in several prominent companies, including Bloomberg and Blockchain.com, and gained expertise in trading systems, matching engines and blockchain technology. This Chinese-Canadian coder entered the world of wealth with his launch of Binance in 2017.
Unfortunately, he was sentenced to four months in prison for violating US banking laws early this year. He faced a severe fine of $50 million, and was ordered to step down from Binance’s CEO position. However, in September, he was released from prison.
Brian Armstrong
With a net worth of $12.1B, Brian Armstrong, the co-founder of popular crypto exchange Coinbase, stays in the second position on the list. In the early stage of his career, he was a software engineer. He worked for several tech giants, including IBM and Airbnb. His destiny changed when he co-founded Coinbase in 2012. In mid-2021, his company was listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange. With a trading volume of $2,236,072,410, Coinbase remains as the most prominent crypto exchange in the United States.
Giancarlo Devasini
The co-founder of Bitfinex and Tether, Giancarlo Devasini stays in the third position on the list. His current net worth is over $9.2B. It is his shareholdings at Tether and Bitfinex that has primarily helped him to amass this much in net worth. Bitfinex remains one of the most promising cryptocurrency exchanges while Tether remains as the third largest cryptocurrency by market cap. Reports say that Devasini has more than a 47% stake in Tether.Â
Michael Saylor
MicoStrategy co-founder Michael Saylor is in the fourth position on the list. He has a net worth of not less than $9M. MicroStrategy, which holds more than 444,262 BTC, worth $42,986,604,529, is the public company with the highest BTC holdings. Saylor adopted an aggressive Bitcoin acquisition strategy, and even called on tech giants to follow his company’s footprints in BTC adoption. Reports suggest that Saylor has a 9.9% stake in MicroStrategy. He has benefited immensely from the massive growth of the crypto sector, especially Bitcoin, in 2024.
Chris Larsen
Ripple Labs co-founder Chris Larsen remains in the fifth position on the list. He has a net worth of more than $8B. XRP, the cryptocurrency of blockchain-based payment protocol Ripple, is the fourth largest crypto, with a market cap of $128,422,395,294.
Fred Ehrsam
With a net worth of $3.4B, Fred Ehrsam, a co-founder of Ethereum, is in the sixth position on the list. The real crypto journey of Ehrsam, who started his career as a trader in Goldman Sachs’s foreign exchange division, commenced when he co-founded Coinbase in 2012. In 2017, he left the Coinbase team to start a crypto venture capital firm, Paradigm. Reports suggest that the venture capital firm has more than $8 billion in AUM in projects such as Uniswap and Flashbots.
Barry Silbert
With a net worth of $3.2B, Barry Silbert resides in the seventh position on the list. A former investment banker, Silbert is the founder of renowned venture capital company Digital Currency Group. BIT, a BTC investment vehicle Silbert founded in 2013, played a crucial role in helping Bitcoin gain more acceptance.
Jed McCaleb
With a net worth of $2.9B, Jed McCaleb stays in the eighth position on the list. A highly experienced programmer, he was a part of two major projects in the crypto sector: Mt.Gox and Ripple. After the crash of Mt. Gox, the first major BTC exchange, he joined the Ripple team as a co-founder. However, his journey with the team failed to last long. In 2014, it created Steller, a strong competitor to Ripple. The sales of his original 9 billion XRP tokens significantly pushed his net worth.
Winklevoss Twins
With a net worth of $2.7B, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, popularly known as the Winklevoss Twins, sit in the ninth position. In 2009, the twins rose to popularity, when they sued Mark Zuckerberg for stealing their idea. As a settlement, Facebook offered a huge sum of $65 million. The twins used the settlement to invest in Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. They founded a crypto exchange, named Gemini.
Devin Finzer
OpenSea co-founder Devin Finzer stays in the tenth position on the list. He has a net worth of more than $2.2B. In his early career, he worked as a software engineer at Pinterest. In 2017, he entered the world of NFTs, with the launch of Opensea, a marketplace for non-fungible tokens and digital assets. In 2021, the platform attained massive growth. The success of OpenSea has helped Finzer to enter the list of the top crypto billionaires.
In conclusion, the crypto industry is set for massive growth in the coming years, offering significant opportunities for crypto entrepreneurs and investors to increase their wealth.
Could we see new names joining the top ten list soon?
Alex Atallah, Kim Hyoung-Nyon, Nikil Viswanathan, and Joe Lau are strong contenders currently in the race to make it to the top.
