Written by: Biteye
Whenever the market fluctuates, some friends shout: "Why can they all be financially free?"
Today, Pigeon will take everyone to eat melons and see how the 10 richest people in the crypto circle made their fortunes? Where did their first pot of gold come from? What are their exclusive tricks? Remember to copy your homework carefully after reading it, after all, they are all roads that the big guys have walked and pits they have stepped on!
01 A list of well-known rich people in the crypto circle
Note: The above are estimates of public wealth, and actual market fluctuations may affect asset value.
Next, let's take a look at the stories of these rich people in the crypto circle one by one, and how they each made their first pot of gold.
1. Satoshi Nakamoto
Speaking of the richest man in the crypto circle, we must mention the mysterious figure Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin. He published the Bitcoin white paper in 2008 and officially launched the Bitcoin network in 2009, and is known as the "Father of Cryptocurrency." His true identity is still unknown. He has never appeared in public and has always been one of the biggest mysteries in the crypto circle.
Although no one knows who he is, the approximately 1.1 million Bitcoins he mined in the early days were his first pot of gold. These Bitcoins have hardly ever been moved or sold, but have rapidly appreciated in value as the price of Bitcoin has soared, now worth approximately $125 billion! It can be said that the more successful Bitcoin is, the more valuable the coins he holds are. However, Satoshi Nakamoto himself disappeared after 2010, and some even speculate that he may have lost his private key or is no longer alive. Regardless of the truth, the wealth myth created by Satoshi Nakamoto's first-mover advantage is undoubtedly the ceiling level in the crypto circle.
2. Zhao Changpeng
As the founder of Binance, Zhao Changpeng's experience is almost a textbook case of entrepreneurship in the crypto circle. CZ was a technical guy who wrote code in his early years and participated in the creation of the OKCoin exchange, but he withdrew shortly after. His first pot of gold can be traced back to 2014, when he sold his house in Shanghai and exchanged it for about 1,500 Bitcoins (the price of Bitcoin was only about $600 each at the time). Bitcoin's subsequent surge in value allowed CZ to realize a considerable appreciation of assets, which laid the capital foundation for his later entrepreneurship.
In 2017, he keenly seized the bull market opportunity in the currency circle and founded Binance. Relying on its efficient matching engine, considerate user experience, and the issuance of platform currency BNB as the core of the ecosystem, Binance rose to become one of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchanges in terms of trading volume in just a few months. Binance's initial profit model was also very simple and crude: matching transaction fees + platform currency appreciation. Think about it, the exchange is charging "toll fees." The more popular the market is and the more transactions there are, the more money they make. After that, with the take-off of Binance's business, CZ's personal wealth also skyrocketed like a snowball, and once topped the list of the richest Chinese.
3. Giancarlo Devasini
Many people may not be familiar with the name Giancarlo Devasini, but everyone who plays coins knows USDT, which is issued by the Tether company he founded. In fact, he graduated early as a plastic surgeon, and later felt bored and changed his career to tinker with electronic products. Devasini's first crypto pot of gold came from investing in the Bitfinex exchange in 2012, and then co-founding the Tether stablecoin project with others in 2014. At that time, the stablecoin market was still a blank. Devasini keenly seized this opportunity and made USDT a dollar substitute in the currency circle. Today, USDT has become a major stablecoin commonly used in major exchanges. The resulting surge in valuation has led to an explosive increase in his wealth in recent years. To put it bluntly, he found the market gap and then fought to the end.
4. Brian Armstrong
Brian Armstrong, the founder of Coinbase, the largest exchange in the United States, took a completely different approach. As a software engineer, he first came into contact with Bitcoin when he worked at Airbnb around 2010 and keenly realized that the process of buying Bitcoin at that time was too cumbersome and unfriendly. In 2012, he resolutely resigned and founded Coinbase. Soon after, he received seed investment from Y Combinator, and then attracted venture capital investment including the New York Stock Exchange, which gave him sufficient funds in the early stage of his entrepreneurship. His first pot of gold came from entrepreneurial financing. Coinbase has insisted on taking the compliant route from the beginning. Although this road is slower, it is stable. Coinbase has not only obtained legal licenses in the United States, but also successfully landed on Nasdaq in 2021, with a market value once exceeding hundreds of billions of dollars.
It is worth mentioning that Coinbase later cooperated with the veteran investment bank JPMorgan Chase to open up the capital entrance of traditional banks, allowing bank customers to directly purchase cryptocurrencies with credit cards. This series of compliance operations not only allowed Armstrong to make money, but also made him a bridge between the traditional financial and crypto worlds.
5. Chris Larsen
Chris Larsen was an entrepreneur in the financial field before entering the blockchain field. As early as the 1990s, he founded the online loan company E-Loan. After that, he also participated in the founding of the P2P lending platform Prosper, and was very successful in the traditional financial world. Because of this, he knows the pain points of the payment field very well.
In 2012, Larsen and his team co-founded Ripple, launching the Ripple payment protocol and XRP cryptocurrency, attempting to use blockchain to change cross-border payments. His first pot of gold in the crypto industry can be said to have come from Ripple's entrepreneurship and early holdings of XRP tokens. Ripple received multiple rounds of financing between 2014 and 2016, and Larsen, as a co-founder, naturally held considerable XRP and company equity. In 2017, the price of XRP soared hundreds of times, making Larsen's personal wealth once rush to the forefront of the list of crypto rich. Although the price of XRP has fallen since then, Larsen still firmly ranks among the top rich in the crypto circle with a large proportion of holdings.
6. Paolo Ardoino
The current CEO of Tether, Paolo Ardoino, is also a technical genius. In 2014, he joined the Bitfinex exchange with his proficiency in computer programming. With his solid technical skills, Paolo quickly solved a series of system problems in the early stage of Bitfinex, demonstrating his super architecture capabilities. This also attracted the attention of Tether founder Devasini. Soon after, Paolo was invited to serve as Tether's Chief Technology Officer (CTO). Paolo's first pot of gold can be said to have come from the equity incentives he received at Tether. When he joined, the USDT issuance volume was only tens of millions of dollars, but he helped the stablecoin quickly expand to more than a dozen mainstream public chains such as Ethereum, Tron, and Solana, which greatly increased the daily transaction volume and application scenarios of USDT.
It can be said that he exchanged technical strength for real money. When Tether made billions of dollars in interest income, Paolo received a soft hand as a shareholder dividend. Technical shares, plus the stablecoin ship taking off, achieved his wealth myth.
7. Sun Yuchen
Everyone should be familiar with the name Sun Yuchen. At the age of 19, he became an early representative of Ripple in Greater China. Later, he created the social app "Accompany Me" and also received investment. But what really made Sun Yuchen earn his first pot of gold was the Tron TRON project he launched in 2017. In the ICO craze, Sun Yuchen raised tens of millions of dollars by issuing TRX tokens, accumulating huge original capital for himself. Subsequently, he caught up with the surge in the crypto market, and the price of TRX once soared a hundred times, instantly increasing the value of the chips held by Sun Yuchen. He himself also holds a large number of initial tokens as the founder of TRON, realizing a leap in wealth in that wave of bull market.
After that, Sun Yuchen began various bold marketing and capital operations: he spent $4.56 million to bid for Buffett's lunch, becoming famous in one fell swoop; he successively acquired the exchange Poloniex, invested in Huobi (now renamed HTX), etc., to build his own crypto territory. Sun Yuchen's style is simple and crude, grasping technical chips on the one hand and market attention on the other. Although the outside world's evaluation of him is mixed, he did seize the opportunities given to young people by the times and sent himself to the list of crypto rich.
8. Michael Saylor
Michael Saylor's story is a bit different from others. This founder of MicroStrategy business intelligence software company was originally a traditional technology rich man. However, in 2020, he, who was already in his fifties, suddenly went all in Bitcoin with狂热姿态. Saylor noticed the potential of Bitcoin and the potential inflation risk of the dollar at the time, so he made an amazing decision to convert most of MicroStrategy's cash reserves into Bitcoin. This is equivalent to betting billions of dollars of a company's "family assets" on Bitcoin. Many people thought he was crazy at the time, after all, this is a Nasdaq-listed company!
But Saylor proved his judgment with facts. MicroStrategy has been continuously purchasing Bitcoin since August 2020. As of 2025, it has accumulated more than 600,000 BTC, becoming one of the listed companies with the most coins in the world. This series of aggressive operations earned him a rich return in the crypto field. As the price of Bitcoin later broke through $100,000, he had a book profit of over $10 billion, and the company's stock price also increased several times. Today, MicroStrategy simply lists Bitcoin as its main reserve asset, and Saylor has become the spiritual leader of the "aggressive bulls" in the crypto circle.
9. Stuart Hoegner
Stuart Hoegner is a very low-key figure in the crypto circle, but in terms of wealth, he is definitely a hidden rich man. As a lawyer, Hoegner was interested in the legal compliance of digital currencies very early on. In 2014, when cryptocurrencies were far from popular, he joined the Bitfinex and Tether teams. At that time, the industry regulation was in a gray area, and it was uncertain whether they could survive. Hoegner withstood tremendous pressure and gradually built a legal and compliance framework for Tether, such as promoting regular audits of Tether's reserves and transparency disclosure strategies, which greatly increased market confidence in USDT. His first pot of gold came from his Tether equity as a founding team member. Unlike other high-profile bosses, Hoegner hardly ever gives interviews or appears in public. He is a typical type of person in the crypto circle who makes a fortune in silence.
10. Cameron & Tyler Winklevoss
The twin brothers Cameron and Tyler won about $65 million in compensation by suing Zuckerberg for the founding rights of Facebook. This money became the starting point for their involvement in the crypto circle. The first pot of gold for the brothers was to use the money earned from the Facebook lawsuit to buy Bitcoin in large quantities at a low price in 2013. This foresight made them one of the earliest large Bitcoin holders.
Although the Gemini exchange created by the two brothers later developed in a mediocre manner, this does not affect the generous returns brought by their early investment in Bitcoin. As of now, it is said that the two still hold about 70,000 Bitcoins. With the first pot of gold paved the way in those years, coupled with the long-term faith in Bitcoin, the Winklevoss brothers realized the continuous appreciation of wealth.
11. Jeremy Allaire
Jeremy Allaire created the world's second largest stablecoin, USDC. As early as the Internet era, he founded companies such as the video platform Brightcove. In 2013, he keenly captured the opportunity of digital currencies and created Circle, with the initial vision of making cryptocurrencies more accessible to the public. Circle has undergone several transformations. In 2018, it partnered with Coinbase to launch the US dollar stablecoin USDC, relying on Coinbase's position and user network to rapidly expand USDC's market share. Allaire's first digital fortune came from the entrepreneurial success of Circle and the rise of USDC.
As the issuance of USDC exceeded hundreds of billions of dollars, Allaire's personal wealth also increased significantly between 2021 and 2023. Although USDC's current market value is slightly lower than USDT, Allaire successfully sent himself to the ranks of crypto billionaires.
12. Xu Mingxing
Xu Mingxing was one of the earliest entrepreneurs in China to invest in the crypto industry, and also the creator of OKCoin/OKX, one of the "Big Three Exchanges" in the crypto circle. In 2013, 28-year-old Xu Mingxing founded OKCoin. In that year, China's Bitcoin exchanges were divided into three pillars (the other two were Huobi and Bitcoin China). With his excellent product and marketing skills, Xu Mingxing quickly grew OKCoin, once occupying half of the trading market in China. His first pot of gold naturally came from the profits of the exchange and the platform currency. OKCoin was later upgraded to OKEx and issued the platform currency OKB. The daily transaction fees of the platform plus the appreciation of OKB allowed Xu Mingxing to earn a lot of money.
It is worth mentioning that he also invited He Yi, Zhao Changpeng and others to join in his early years, although the group later parted ways due to disagreements.
13. Vitalik Buterin (V God)
As the father of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin is known as "V God" in the Chinese community. At the age of 19, he wrote the Ethereum white paper with his ideas for improving Bitcoin. In 2014, V God officially launched the Ethereum project by raising funds through crowdfunding. He himself, as a co-founder, also holds a considerable number of initial ETH. The birth of Ethereum opened the door to smart contracts and decentralized applications. Blockchain is no longer limited to Bitcoin. V God's first pot of gold came from early holdings of Ethereum.
However, this technical geek is not obsessed with money. He has repeatedly donated huge amounts of crypto assets for charity and scientific research, and publicly expressed concerns about the crypto bubble. Nevertheless, with the status of the creator of the Ethereum public chain, V God is still regarded as one of the most influential figures in the crypto circle. He has proven to the world that young developers can also change the world and reap wealth through technological innovation.
02 Summary of the path to sudden wealth: Three wealth creation models subvert traditional logic
After reading the stories of these bigwigs in the crypto circle, some friends may ask: Is there any commonality in their successful wealth creation that can be followed? Pigeon summarized it. In fact, behind the wealth myths in the crypto circle, there are roughly three types of routines, which can be said to be "sudden wealth paths" that subvert the traditional wealth creation logic.
1. King of Exchanges
The first category is "being the boss by opening an exchange." CZ and Xu Mingxing are outstanding representatives in this regard. The core of making money from exchanges lies in "charging handling fees + building an ecosystem." As long as users trade on your platform, you will continuously receive a cut. Another exchange tycoon, Coinbase's Armstrong, chose the compliant listing route, steadily obtaining licenses and listing on Nasdaq. Nowadays, the exchange industry has a significant head effect. While lying down and earning handling fees, it can further amplify revenue through the platform currency ecosystem. The charm of this path lies in the fact that as long as you stand at the entrance of the industry's capital flow, wealth will continuously flow to you.
2. Hold Bitcoin for the long term
The first type of model is now more difficult to achieve for most people. The second type of model is to hold Bitcoin for the long term. In other words, it is to bet heavily and hold potentially valuable crypto assets for a long time, and exchange time for a multiple increase in value. Michael Saylor is one of the representatives of extreme betting on Bitcoin. Even if he only started to reserve a large amount of Bitcoin purchases from 2020, he has now become one of the top three Bitcoin holders in the world. If you believe that Bitcoin will increase by 100 times in ten years, then burying a large number of chips early will undoubtedly usher in an amazing compounding effect. Of course, the premise of this route is to have extraordinary vision and a strong belief in holding coins, otherwise it is easy to be washed out in the ups and downs.
3. Ecosystem builder
The third category is ecosystem builders, who often have both technical talent and capital vision, and obtain huge wealth by building a new ecosystem. V God led the development of Ethereum that time, from writing the white paper at the age of 19 to leading the technical iteration today. Since its launch in 2014, Devasini and Paolo have made USDT the core of liquidity in the entire market, and the ecosystem feeds back the value of the token. Jeremy Allaire launched USDC and spent more than 10 years to gain a firm foothold as the "on-chain dollar." Sun Yuchen laid out the entire chain of TRON from the chain, stable currency, to the exchange, which is also being done and polished. These people not only "seized the opportunity," but used time to build a moat, BUIDL for a long time, and exchanged it for today's status.
03 What can ordinary people copy from the big shots in the crypto circle?
Pigeon has summarized some dry goods, hoping to help everyone step on fewer pits and make more comebacks in the big waves of the crypto circle:
1. Accurate vision and quick action
Satoshi Nakamoto created BTC, and CZ founded Binance. These wealth myths all started from a bold and daring idea. When the opportunity comes, you must get on the bus decisively. Don't wait until most people understand it before you take action. By then, the soup will be cold. Opportunities are always reserved for the first people to eat crabs.
2. Hold on to your chips
The common wealth secret of the big shots in the crypto circle is not frequent operations, but holding on to good projects for a long time. The most common mistake for ordinary people is to chase highs and sell lows, and they can't hold on to their coins, resulting in small profits and big losses. Either don't play, or if you do, have faith. Hold on to good things and don't mess around. Time will give you a rich return.
3. Find your advantages
Everyone has their own professional advantages. Combining this advantage with opportunities in the crypto circle will greatly increase the success rate. Ripple founder Larsen understands finance and cross-border payments, CZ understands technology and makes matching engines, etc. They all grafted their old professions onto new tracks, achieving twice the result with half the effort. Think about what you are good at, and then see if there are any related directions in the crypto field that you can delve into.
4. Live and learn
The crypto industry is changing rapidly. These bigwigs almost all have one thing in common: they maintain a keen sense of new knowledge and a passion for continuous learning. New blockchain concepts are emerging one after another. Without continuous learning, it is easy to miss the next wave of opportunities or even step on pits. Remember, in order to survive in the crypto circle, learning and self-upgrading are always the most cost-effective investments.
Finally, let Pigeon kindly remind you: Although the wealth myths in the crypto circle are tempting, always remember that high returns are always accompanied by high risks! Although the successful experiences of the big shots can be used for reference, no one can completely copy someone else's life. After all, you still have to walk your own path. Finding a way to make money that suits you is more important than blindly following others.