With a fortune of $227 billion... Who are the top 5 billionaires in the cryptocurrency world?
Satoshi Nakamoto, the "inventor of Bitcoin," tops the list of the richest 5 billionaires in the cryptocurrency world, holding the throne of this sector where these five wealthy individuals collectively own about $227.7 billion, according to Forbes.
1- Satoshi Nakamoto
Satoshi Nakamoto, the "inventor of Bitcoin," ranked first with an estimated fortune of $119.3 billion. This is a pseudonym used by the person or people who developed Bitcoin, authored its white paper, created the original reference implementation of Bitcoin, and released it. This massive amount is attributed to a large number of Bitcoins that he is believed to own as the creator of the currency.
It is said that there is someone behind the name, as he invented the complex source code for Bitcoin, and the name is also associated with several cryptocurrency wallets, which are presumed to be owned by Nakamoto.
Dan Kaminsky, a prominent internet security researcher, told The New Yorker in 2011: "Either there is a team of people who worked on this, or this guy is a genius."
2- Changpeng Zhao
He ranks second with a fortune of $66.2 billion and is the founder and former CEO of Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world.
He ranks second with a fortune of $66.2 billion and is the founder and former CEO of Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world.
The Canadian-Chinese programmer began his career building high-frequency trading systems for high-profile businessmen on Wall Street.
Zhao founded the Binance platform in 2017 and still owns an estimated 90% of the exchange, in addition to a stock of its BNB tokens.
In November 2023, Zhao stepped down as CEO of Binance as part of a comprehensive settlement with U.S. authorities.
3- Giancarlo Devasini
He is the CFO, with a fortune of $22.4 billion, and perhaps the largest shareholder in Tether, the largest issuer of stablecoins.
More than 100 billion Tether tokens have been minted, and thanks to rising interest rates, Tether made a profit of $6.2 billion in 2023.
Devasini owns an estimated 47% stake in Tether, which Forbes values by applying price-to-earnings multiples to a group of mid-sized banks and publicly traded asset managers.
4- Brian Armstrong
He has $10.4 billion and is the CEO of Coinbase Global, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States.
Armstrong was a former software engineer at Airbnb and co-founded Coinbase in San Francisco in 2012 with former currency trader Fred Ehrsam.
Coinbase went public in a direct listing on the Nasdaq on April 14, 2021, briefly reaching a market valuation of $100 billion.
Armstrong owns about 19% of Coinbase.
Co-founder Fred Ehrsam left the company in 2017 but still owns 6% and serves on the board; he is also a billionaire.
5- Michael Saylor
He has an estimated fortune of $9.4 billion, founded the business analytics software company MicroStrategy and managed it as CEO until early August 2022, when he moved to the position of Chairman.
Saylor was one of the most famous executives during the internet bubble and was a billionaire in the late 1990s thanks to his stake in MicroStrategy.
He fell from billionaire ranks after questionable accounting led to restating financial results and the collapse of the internet bubble, which caused the stock to crash.
He became a billionaire again thanks to his investments in Bitcoin. In October 2020, he revealed that he personally bought 17,732 Bitcoins for $175 million.
He directed the treasury of MicroStrategy into Bitcoin, spending billions of dollars to amass 214,400 Bitcoins.
Saylor was a former rocket scientist, studied aerospace engineering at MIT on a scholarship from the Air Force before founding MicroStrategy in 1989.
