The top five wealthiest crypto-businessmen in the world
Recently, the crypto market has seemed turbulent, with asset prices rising and falling to record lows. However, despite all the difficulties, the crypto industry still makes colossal amounts of money.
One of the reasons for such intense market volatility can be considered whales who hold vast amounts of cryptocurrency in their hands and whose opinion or a simple statement can affect the price of bitcoin, ether, or other assets, such as the growth of Dogecoin due to Elon Musk’s tweets.
So, who are these people who can influence the crypto industry and own so much cryptocurrency that the market depends on their opinion?
Changpeng Zhao
The first place at the top of the wealthiest crypto-businessmen in the world is rightfully held by Changpeng Zhao. His fortune as of 2022 equates to $65 billion. Forbes magazine estimates that the 44-year-old Canadian crypto-magnate owns about 70% of the cryptocurrency exchange Binance. Zhao holds a small number of bitcoins and an unknown amount of his cryptocurrency, BNB.
Sam Bankman-Fried
Second place on the list of whales from the cryptocurrency world is held by Sam Bankman-Fried. The American has a fortune of $24 billion as of 2022. He keeps part of that fortune in tokens (FTT) from the FTX platform. One-half of it belongs to him. In total, he has $7 billion worth of tokens. It is important to note that Sam Bankman-Fried intends to give away his entire fortune during his lifetime. The businessman made this promise because he is a follower of effective altruism and shares the views of the utilitarian vision of the need to do good.
Brian Armstrong
Brian Armstrong is the third wealthiest crypto-businessman in the world. Armstrong’s fortune amounts to $6.6 billion. The businessman is the co-founder and director of the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, whose listing at the end of the 2021 audit was $100 billion. Currently, the company’s capitalization makes up only half of this amount, but this money is enough to close the top three cryptocurrency magnates.
Gary Wang
The fourth cryptocurrency billionaire Gary Wang boasts a fortune of $5.9 billion. The former Google software engineer co-founded the cryptocurrency exchange FTX. He owns 16% of the company and more than $600 million worth of FTT tokens. Wang graduated from MIT, where he studied computer science and mathematics. He was involved in creating the Google Flights app for buying airline tickets.
Chris Larsen
The crypto-businessman Chris Larsen rounds out the top five. His fortune is estimated at $4.3 billion. He co-founded the blockchain company Ripple. The platform’s XRP token is one of the world’s top 10 cryptocurrencies and is ranked eighth there. He is the oldest of the top five cryptocurrency billionaires – Larson is 61 years old. He also works closely with activists concerned about global warming and environmental change. One of the programs Larson is involved in is called “Change the Code, Not the Climate”. Its main goal is to reduce the carbon footprint of bitcoin mining.
