Meet the 17 investors and entrepreneurs who made ten-digit fortunes on the blockchain.
By John Hyatt, Forbes Staff
The crypto winter is over. Bitcoin has more than doubled over the past 12 months, hitting an all-time high of $73,000 in March after the U.S. legalized bitcoin-pegged exchange-traded funds. The total value of all outstanding cryptocurrencies increased by 170%, adding some $1.6 trillion in market value over the past 12 months, according to CoinGecko.
That’s helped make at least 17 people crypto billionaires, according to Forbes’ 2024 World’s Billionaires list, up from nine crypto billionaires last year. These 17 investors and entrepreneurs are worth a collective $93 billion, between their estimated crypto asset holdings, publicly disclosed stock holdings and private assets. That’s more than double the $37 billion in collective crypto billionaire wealth last year.
For the third year running, Changpeng Zhao, founder and former CEO of crypto exchange Binance, is crypto’s wealthiest person. Despite pleading guilty to U.S. money laundering charges in November, CZ, as he’s known, is now worth an estimated $33 billion, up from $10.5 billion last year. That makes him the biggest crypto gainer in dollar terms since last year and the 50th-wealthiest person in the world. The bulk of his fortune comes from his majority stake in Binance, which remains the industry’s largest global trading venue by volume.
Two of this year’s biggest gainers can thank investors in their publicly traded companies. Michael Saylor, CEO of MicroStrategy, a software firm that has made heavy investments in bitcoin, is now worth an estimated $4.4 billion, compared to $760 million last year. Brian Armstrong, CEO of crypto exchange Coinbase, is worth an estimated $11.2 billion, up from just $2.2 billion last year. Shares of Coinbase and MicroStrategy are each up more than fourfold over the past 12 months.
Making their debut on Forbes’ annual billionaires ranking are Giancarlo Devasini, Paolo Ardoino, Jean-Louis van der Velde and Stuart Hoegner, four large shareholders of Tether, a controversial but wildly profitable stablecoin issuer. Crypto’s three-comma club also includes familiar faces like the Winklevoss twins (of Facebook fame), venture capitalist and Nikki Haley booster Tim Draper, and Ripple cofounder and budding space entrepreneur Jed McCaleb.
Here are the richest people in crypto in 2024.
NET WORTHS ARE AS OF MARCH 8, 2024; COMPARISONS ARE BETWEEN MARCH 8, 2024 AND MARCH 10, 2023.
16. Joe Lau
Net worth: $1.5 billion (vs. $1.8 billion) | Source of wealth: Alchemy
16. Nikil Viswanathan
Net worth: $1.5 billion (vs. $1.8 billion) | Source of wealth: Alchemy
The two Stanford alumni cofounded Alchemy, a Web3 infrastructure provider whose developer suite powers crypto and blockchain projects, in 2020. Investors valued Alchemy at more than $10 billion in early 2022. Today the company is worth about $5.6 billion, based on secondary sales of private shares tracked by data provider Notice.co.
15. Tim Draper
Net worth: $2 billion (vs. $650 million) | Source of wealth: Bitcoin
Draper is a venture capitalist and early Bitcoin investor. In 2014, he bought 29,656 bitcoins confiscated by U.S. Marshals from the shuttered Silk Road black market for $18.7 million, or $632 per coin. They are now worth $2 billion. He has also made dozens of VC investments in companies ranging from Tesla to Theranos.
14. Stuart Hoegner
Net worth: $2.5 billion (vs. $1.2 billion in July) | Source of wealth: Tether
Stuart Hoegner has served as general counsel for Tether and its sister company Bitfinex since 2014, and he holds an estimated 13% stake. A Canadian certified accountant, Hoegner began his career at Ernst & Young before starting Gaming Counsel Professional Corporation, a boutique law practice that catered to online gambling and cryptocurrency clients. He was also previously a director of compliance and deputy general counsel at Excapsa Software, an online poker company that became embroiled in a software-facilitated cheating scandal.
Tether has been accused of facilitating money laundering for terrorist groups and criminal organizations, including human trafficking rings that run “Pig Butchering” crypto scams. (Tether says it follows “stringent Know Your Customer and Anti-Money Laundering protocols” and “remains committed to expeditiously working with law enforcement” to identify criminal activity.) In 2021, Tether and its sister company Bitfinex paid $18.5 million to settle fraud charges with the New York Attorney General’s office, which alleged Tether had overstated its cash reserves.
13. Mike Novogratz
Net worth: $2.5 billion (returnee) | Source of wealth: Galaxy Digital Holdings, Bitcoin
An early bitcoin investor,…
Read More: The Richest Crypto And Bitcoin Billionaires In The World 2024