Forbes has officially released its list of the year’s 10 leading crypto tycoons, who have amassed enormous fortunes in the cryptocurrency and blockchain industries.
The Forbes annual list of crypto billionaires has been revised, and the number of individuals who have accumulated significant money through cryptocurrency has climbed significantly.
The crypto elite list currently includes 19 billionaires, seven more than last year and roughly 60% more compared to the previous year.
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The world of cryptocurrencies has had a wild year, from the Elon Musk-fueled rally of Dogecoin, to Web3 developments and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), to the massive swings in Bitcoin and other crypto assets.
We saw governments adopt crypto as legal money, countries issue central bank digital currencies, and some nations enacting adaptive crypto policies and frameworks.
The creators of Web3 infrastructure business Alchemy and the founders of OpenSea, a marketplace for NFTs, are newcomers to the Forbes list.
‘CZ’ Is Forbes No. 1
Changpeng Zhao, Sam Bankman-Fried, and Brian Armstrong are the three wealthiest men on the list. They all run bitcoin exchanges.
The creator and chief executive of Binance, “CZ,” is the 19th wealthiest person in the world. According to Forbes, he owns at least 70% of Binance, one of the largest cryptocurrency trading platforms in the world.
FTX founder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried has secured the second place next to CZ with $24 billion in estimated net value.
Bankman-Fried has been dubbed the “Crypto Robin Hood” for his repeated statements that he intends to donate a sizable percentage of his money to charity.
BTC total market cap at $875.45 billion on the daily chart | Source: TradingView.com
Coinbase CEO and founder Brian Armstrong took the cryptocurrency exchange public in April 2021 via a direct listing, valuing it at an astounding $100 billion.
Although its market value has nearly halved, Armstrong remains the third wealthiest cryptocurrency investor with nearly 20% ownership.
Gary Wang, co-founder and chief technical officer of FTX, is a new addition to the crypto billionaires list, with a net worth of $5.6 billion.
Other Billionaires Make The List
The list also includes Song Chi-hyung, the founder of South Korea’s Upbit exchange, who is reputedly worth $3.7 billion.
Kim Hyoung-nyon, executive vice president of South Korea’s Dunamu, controls an estimated 14% of Upbit, valuing him at nearly $2 billion.
Michael Saylor, CEO of MicroStrategy, has maintained his status as a crypto billionaire, with an estimated net worth of $1.6 billion.
Meanwhile, the combined wealth of the world’s billionaires has decreased from a record high last year, owing to the decline in global stock markets following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, despite the fact that the world’s wealthiest people still own a combined $12.8 trillion, The Guardian reported.
According to the annual Forbes list of the world’s wealthiest people, the global billionaire population decreased by 329 to 2,668, although the aggregate value of their combined assets decreased somewhat from $13.1 trillion in 2021, the report added.
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Featured image from Forbes, chart from TradingView.com