11 Richest Crypto Billionaires in the World

In the world of cryptocurrency, fortunes can quickly change. Some of the world’s richest crypto billionaires helped build the blockchain world at the dawn of the industry. Others are new arrivals who developed, innovated and cashed in later down the road — but either way, they’re all sitting pretty today.

Read: 3 Things You Must Do When Your Savings Reach $50,000

Keep reading to learn about the people who own the world’s greatest digital fortunes.

Are There Any Crypto Billionaires?

While most members of the three-comma club have multiple sources of income, some billionaires have blockchain technology to thank for the bulk of their riches. The following is an introduction to the wealthiest crypto magnates of all.

Matthew Roszak

Net worth: $1 billion

Matthew Roszak rode to blockchain fame and fortune when he co-founded Bloq, which helps banks store crypto and facilitates stablecoin transactions for companies. He worked in venture capital and as an entrepreneur in the 1990s and 2000s before landing in legal trouble in the mid-aughts when he settled insider trading charges.

According to Forbes, he got into the crypto game early, building his portfolio starting in 2012.

The Winklevoss Twins

Net worth: $1.1 billion each

For the most important twins in tech history, it’s only natural that even Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss’s net worths would be identical. The famous Facebook brothers co-founded the crypto exchange Gemini in 2014, making them major players on the cutting edge of both the social media and blockchain revolutions — and they leveraged the first to win the second.

According to Forbes, they used their $65 million legal settlement with Mark Zuckerberg to stockpile bitcoin.

Today, Gemini processes roughly $200 million in daily trades, and the twins own roughly 70,000 bitcoins.

Fred Ehrsam

Net worth: $1.1 billion

Fred Ehrsam first learned about digital currency as an avid “World of Warcraft” player. In 2012, he co-founded Coinbase with Brian Armstrong, who also appears on this list. Coinbase went on to become the largest cryptocurrency exchange in America.

According to Forbes, Ehrsam still owns 6% of the company and sits on the board despite leaving Coinbase in 2017. One year later in 2018, he founded the crypto investment firm Paradigm.

Tim Draper

Net worth: $1.2 billion

Descended from a legendary Silicon Valley investing dynasty, Tim Draper is a venture capitalist and founding partner of Draper Fisher Jurvetson. His hundreds of investments include famous companies like Tesla and infamous ones like Theranos.

But according to Forbes, he made his real money on one big blockchain bet. When the federal government raided and shut down the black market website Silk Road, he bought 29,656 bitcoins that the U.S. Marshals confiscated for just $632 per coin — less than $20 million for the entire haul.

Nikil Viswanathan

Net worth: $1.8 billion

Nikil Viswanathan co-founded Alchemy with Joe Lau in 2020, and today, thousands of blockchain and Web3 companies rely on the company’s software. Before founding Alchemy, the duo — both Stanford grads — built Down to Lunch, a meetup app that at one point was No. 1 in the Apple Store.

Joe Lau

Net worth: $1.8 billion

Joe Lau — not to be confused with Hong Kong real estate magnate and fellow billionaire Joseph Lau — co-founded Alchemy in 2020 and currently owns a 26% stake, according to Forbes. The company spun off Alchemy Ventures in 2021 to invest in its current clients’ crypto endeavors.

Chris Larsen

Net worth: $2.2 billion

Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen stepped down as CEO at the end of 2016, but he still serves as executive chairman. Larsen was way ahead of the crypto curve, launching Ripple with Jed McCaleb — more on him shortly — in 2012 to facilitate international blockchain payments.

It wasn’t Larsen’s first foray as a digital pioneer either. A generation earlier, he cofounded the home lender e-Loan.

Jed McCaleb

Net worth: $2.4 billion

Few billionaire crypto pioneers go back as far as Jed McCaleb, who founded Mt. Gox in 2010 as the first legitimate cryptocurrency exchange. Mt. Gox has been a notorious part of crypto folklore since the exchange was hacked in 2014 during the tumultuous early days of bitcoin.

McCaleb sold Mt. Gox one year before the hack. In 2012, he co-founded Ripple with Chris Larsen and according to Forbes, that’s where he made his real money. McCaleb received 9 billion XRP as a Ripple founder, and it’s estimated that he still owns 3.4 billion, which represents the bulk of his wealth.

Brian Armstrong

Net worth: $3 billion

Coinbase Global is the largest crypto exchange in America, and as CEO, Brian Armstrong is in charge of it all. The former Airbnb software engineer co-founded Coinbase at the dawn of the crypto era in 2012 with Fred Ehrsam. The company went public in 2021 and trades on the Nasdaq. At one point, Coinbase topped a market cap of $100 billion.

Armstrong currently owns roughly 19% of the company’s shares.

Changpeng Zhao

Net worth: $4.5 billion

Changpeng Zhao is the human embodiment of the ups and downs of the crypto industry. In 2021, he was worth just $1.9 billion. At the start of 2022, he was worth $65 billion and now he’s back in the poorhouse with less than $5 billion to his name.

The Chinese-Canadian coder founded Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, and serves as its CEO. According to Forbes, Binance facilitated trades worth more than $9.5 trillion in 2021 — two-thirds of all trading on all centralized exchanges.

How Many Crypto Millionaires Exist?

While billionaires are much fewer and easier to track, it’s not possible to keep a tally of crypto millionaires. High volatility is a fact of crypto investing — a trader could easily go from six figures to seven, then back down to six in a single trading day.

Who Is the Biggest Crypto Owner?

According to River Financial and many other industry publications, Satoshi Nakamoto, the still-anonymous founder of the bitcoin project, mined more than 22,000 blocks starting on Jan. 3, 2009. He, she or they earned roughly 1.1 million bitcoins for the effort, which remains the world’s largest stockpile of the original cryptocurrency.

Which Cryptocurrency Can Make Me a Billionaire?

A billion dollars doesn’t come easy. As you can see from the profiles of the world’s blockchain billionaires, most came into their fortunes not by purchasing coins, but by developing technologies, processes or companies that added value to the industry or the companies that rely on it.

Data is accurate as of Feb. 16, 2023, and is subject to change.

All net worth information has been sourced from Forbes.

This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: 11 Richest Crypto Billionaires in the World