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Top 10 Richest Crypto Traders In The World (2023)
Cryptocurrency though offers a life of luxury and comfort for those who know its onions, it is also one of the risky businesses to venture in without prior knowledge. Well, if you are curious to know who the richest crypto trader in the world is, we have compiled a list of the top 10 richest crypto traders in the world in this article.
Imagine the situation of the guy who, in the early days of the advent of cryptocurrencies, sold off 10,000 Bitcoin for pizza. Pathetic, right? The year 2022 in the world of cryptocurrencies was a wild one, from the rise and current uncertain move of Dogecoin, which Elon Musk helped to drive, to Web3 breakthroughs and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) dramatic rise and fall, to the dramatic downturns in Bitcoin and other crypto alts.
To put it mildly, the cryptocurrency market sank to its knees. Macroeconomic pressures, scandals, and meltdowns beset the sector, wiping out riches apparently overnight. Many crypto fans are perplexed by the situation of the market as 2022 draws to a close, particularly in light of the recent FTX crash and all of its deaths.
In the midst of all the activity and according to Forbes, the $2 trillion crypto industry offers plenty of opportunities for profit. Just ask the record 19 billionaires—7 more than last year—who derived their wealth from cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology, according to Forbes’ annual World’s Billionaires list, which was released on Tuesday.
As said earlier, one of the main factors in the attention given to cryptocurrencies is their profitable future prospects. Many investors have been able to transform their cryptocurrencies into money-making machines thanks to a fortnight’s worth of unreal surges in crypto token values.
On the other hand, a lot of investors have also suffered significant losses after taking the wrong position. The greatest crypto billionaires must have some special qualities or coping mechanisms that allowed them to make their way through uncharted territory and succeed financially. Let’s get to know some of the wealthiest crypto billionaires on the list below.
Key Takeaways
- Changpeng Zhao is the richest crypto trader
- He is also the 19th richest person in the world
- The tragic collapse of FTX has damaged investor confidence and caused numerous casualties.
1. Changpeng Zhao
Changpeng Zhao is the richest crypto trader. Popularly known as “CZ, is the founder of Binance, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume.
Zhao was born in China’s Jiangsu province. He immigrated to Canada with his family in the late 1980s when he was 12 years old, residing in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Both of his parents were educators in China. Prior to being deported to rural areas and labelled a “pro-bourgeois genius,” Zhao’s father was a university instructor. Zhao supported his family during his adolescent years by doing several service jobs, like at a McDonald’s. He is first on our list of the top 10 richest crypto traders in the world
He invested heavily in cryptocurrencies and even sold his condo in 2014 for Bitcoin. Binance, a company founded in 2017, manages daily transactions totalling billions of dollars. Although it may not be as widely known to American clients as Coinbase, Binance is bigger and provides more coins and derivatives than its rival. According to Bloomberg, it brought in around $20 billion in sales in 2021.
The exchange’s rapid growth has negatively impacted its regulatory position. It has been obliged to function without a headquarters since it is subject to regulatory scrutiny in important financial jurisdictions. Zhao stated to Bloomberg that he supports cryptocurrency regulation.
He is still unaffected by his status as a billionaire in terms of wealth. He told Bloomberg, “I don’t care about wealth, money, or rankings,” and he’s willing to donate the majority of his fortune before he passes away.
2. Sam Bankman-Fried
Sam Bankman-Fried has a net worth of $10.5 billion and despite his recent palaver is also one of the richest crypto traders in the world. He is a former billionaire, entrepreneur, and investor from the United States. Bankman-Fried was the founder and CEO of the cryptocurrency trading company Alameda Research as well as the FTX exchange.
Late in 2022, a crisis at FTX caused the native cryptocurrency of FTX, FTT, to crash. Bankman-Fried resigned as CEO of FTX during the crisis and declared he would wind down operations at Alameda Research. FTX then filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. He is second on our list of the top 10 richest crypto traders in the world.
Prior to the demise of FTX, Bankman-Fried was listed as the 60th richest person in the world by The World’s Billionaires and the 41st richest American in the Forbes 400.
At its peak, his net worth was $26 billion. His projected net worth in October 2022 was $10.5 billion. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, by November 8, 2022, amid FTX’s bankruptcy, his net worth was reported to have decreased by 94 per cent in a day to $991.5 million, marking the greatest one-day drop in the index’s history.
The Bloomberg Billionaires Index determined that Bankman-Fried has no substantial wealth as of November 11, 2022.
3. Brian Armstrong
Brian Armstrong is the also among the richest crypto traders in the world; he is the CEO and founder of Coinbase. Early on in his career, Armstrong worked as a consultant for Deloitte and as an IBM developer.
He stumbled upon the Satoshi Nakamoto-authored Bitcoin white paper in 2010. He began working with Airbnb as a software developer in 2011, where he gained exposure to the 190 nations in that Airbnb was then active.
Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam created Coinbase in 2012 to provide a platform for trading bitcoin and other virtual currencies among cryptocurrency enthusiasts. Its founding CEO was Armstrong.
The company was valued at $8.1 billion in a fundraising round in 2018, and in December 2020, it filed with the SEC to float through a direct listing. Brian Armstrong is third on our list of the top 10 richest crypto traders in the world.
Armstrong has a net worth of $2.4 billion as of May 2022, according to Forbes, while Coinbase’s market capitalization increased to $85 billion as a result of a direct listing in April 2021.
4. Gary Wang
Gary Wang is also one of the richest crypto traders in the world. He is a co-founder and chief technology officer of FTX, the press-shy Wang launched the crypto exchange with Bankman-Fried in 2019.
Wang holds a 16% stake in FTX’s global business and over $600 million worth of FTT, the native token of FTX. Before going into crypto, Wang was a software engineer at Google, where he helped build the online booking platform Google Flights. He studied math and computer science at MIT.
He grew up in New Jersey. He attended USA/Canada Mathcamp, where he met his future classmate and cofounder Sam Bankman-Fried. After high school, he attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he studied mathematics and computer science. At MIT, he was a member of Epsilon Theta, a coed fraternity.
5. Song Chi-Hyung
The founder of South Korea’s leading crypto exchange, Upbit, Chi-hyung has cashed in on South Korea’s booming, $46 billion crypto market. He’s estimated to own about a quarter of Upbit’s parent company, Dunamu, which was valued at $17 billion last November when Hybe, the agency behind K-pop sensation BTS, bought a 2.5% stake.
Qualcomm, the U.S. semiconductor giant, previously held 6% of Dunamu. He is fifth on our list of the top 10 richest crypto traders in the world.
After only three months since its October 2017 start, Chi-cryptocurrency Hyung’s exchange UpBit has grown to become the biggest in South Korea. At the end of 2017, the platform, owned by Song’s Dunamu, handled nearly $4.7 billion in daily transactions in one of the most significant markets for cryptocurrencies.
Tens of millions of dollars have also been invested in the exchange by Kakao, the most well-known messaging service in South Korea. Now that Song is the chairman of the board at Dunamu, he is planning to go global.
6. Jed McCaleb
Jed McCaleb is an American programmer, entrepreneur and philanthropist. He is a co-founder and the CTO of Stellar
McCaleb founded Ripple, where he worked as the CTO until 2013, before co-founding Stellar. McCaleb is also credited with founding the Mt. Gox bitcoin exchange, the eDonkey and Overnet peer-to-peer networks, and the eDonkey2000 software.
In January 2018, it was reported that McCaleb’s Ripple token ownership was worth $20 billion, which would put him in 40th place on Forbes’ list of the world’s richest people.
McCaleb founded Ripple, where he worked as the CTO until 2013, before co-founding Stellar. McCaleb is also credited with founding the Mt. Gox bitcoin exchange, the eDonkey and Overnet peer-to-peer networks, and the eDonkey2000 software. Jed McCaleb is sixth on our list of the top 10 richest crypto traders in the world.
According to a January 2018 claim, McCaleb had Ripple tokens valued at $20 billion, which would have put him in the 40th position on Forbes’ list of the world’s richest people.
7. Chris Larsen
Chris Larsen is a corporate entrepreneur and angel investor best known for helping to launch multiple Silicon Valley technology companies, including one that used peer-to-peer financing.
He co-founded the online mortgage lender E-Loan in 1996, and when he served as its CEO, E-Loan was the first business to publicly disclose customers’ FICO credit ratings.
The market value of the E-Loan was projected to be $1 billion in 2000. Larsen departed the business in 2005 after it was sold to Banco Popular.
He co-founded Prosper Marketplace in 2006, and from that time until 2012, he was its CEO. Later in 2012, he co-founded Ripple Labs, Inc., a business that created the software known as Ripple, which facilitates the immediate and direct transfer of money between two parties.
Many cryptocurrency observers view the case, which is currently making its way through federal courts, as a turning point for subsequent token sales. Larsen and Ripple have said they did nothing improper. He is seventh on our list of the top 10 richest crypto traders in the world.
In addition to his legal troubles, 61-year-old Larsen has teamed up with environmental organizations to start the “Change the Code, Not the Climate” campaign, which aims to persuade the Bitcoin community to lessen the large carbon footprint of the digital currency.
8. Michael Saylor
Michael J. Saylor is an American entrepreneur and business executive. He is the co-founder and executive chairman of the business intelligence, mobile software, and cloud-based services provider MicroStrategy. From 1989 to 2022, Saylor was the chief executive officer of MicroStrategy.
The Mobile Wave: How Mobile Intelligence Will Change Everything, published in 2012, was written by him. Additionally, he serves as Saylor Academy’s sole trustee and offers free online education.
He had received 31 patents as of 2016 and 9 more applications were being considered. Saylor has transformed MicroStrategy, the company he co-founded in 1989 that develops business software, into a Bitcoin proxy.
The crypto fanatic handled MicroStrategy’s acquisition of more than 70,000 bitcoins in 2020 alone, for a total cost of nearly $1.1 billion, utilizing cash on hand and borrowed money. The wager has been successful as Bitcoin’s value has increased.
The last two years have seen a quadrupling of MicroStrategy’s shares, bringing Saylor back into the three-comma club. (A billionaire from the dot-com era, Saylor, 57, watched his wealth disappear after an accounting controversy and the dot-com meltdown.) Michael J. Saylor is eighth on our list of the top 10 richest crypto traders in the world.
Saylor’s MicroStrategy, which has an insatiable appetite for bitcoin, said in late March that it has taken out a $205 million loan to purchase more of the most popular cryptocurrency.
9. Cameron Winklevoss
Cameron Howard Winklevoss is an American cryptocurrency investor and Olympic rower, who (with his brother) founded Winklevoss Capital Management and Gemini cryptocurrency exchange.
Winklevoss was born in Southampton, New York, and raised in Greenwich, Connecticut. Howard Edward Winklevoss Jr., an adjunct professor of actuarial science at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, and Carol (née Leonard) are his parents.
He (left-handed) and his identical “mirror-image” twin brother Tyler showed early signs of teamwork by playing musical instruments and building Lego together.
Winklevoss, his brother Tyler, and fellow Harvard student Divya Narendra looked for a better method to connect with other students at Harvard University and other universities in December 2002.
The three came up with the idea for HarvardConnection, a social network for Harvard students that eventually spread to other colleges throughout the nation. The requirement to have a specific domain that matched the “club” you were entering, like harvard.edu, set ConnectU apart from other social media networks. Cameron Winklevoss is ninth on our list of the top 10 richest crypto traders in the world.
10. Tyler Winklevoss
Tyler Howard Winklevoss is among the richest crypto traders in the world. He is an American investor, founder of Winklevoss Capital Management and Gemini cryptocurrency exchange, and Olympic rower.
Winklevoss, his brother Cameron Winklevoss, and fellow Harvard classmate Divya Narendra looked for a more effective way to connect with other students at Harvard University and other universities in December 2002.
The three came up with the idea for HarvardConnection, a social network for Harvard students that eventually spread to other colleges throughout the nation.
The requirement to have a specific domain that matched the “club” you were entering, like harvard.edu, set ConnectU apart from other social media networks. Tyler Winklevoss is the tenth on our list of the top 10 richest crypto traders in the world.
Top 10 Richest Crypto Traders In The World
The table below contains the names, countries and net worth of the richest crypto traders in the world in 2023
RANK | NAME | NET WORTH | NATIONALITY |
---|---|---|---|
1. | Changpeng Zhao | $13 BILLION | Chinese-Canadian |
2. | Sam Bankman-Fried | $10.5 BILLION | American |
3. | Brian Armstrong | $10 BILLION | American |
4. | Gary Wang | $4.2 BILLION | American |
5. | Song Chi-Hyung | $3.6 BILLION | American |
6. | Jed McCaleb | $2.4B | American |
7. | Chris Larsen | $2.2 BILLION | American |
8. | Michael Saylor | $1.6 BILLION | American |
9 | Cameron Winklevoss | $1.1 BILLION | American |
10. | Tyler Winklevoss | $1.1 BILLION | American |
Conclusion
The number of people generating billions off the new asset class has grown as cryptocurrencies gain popularity. Crypto billionaires are a diverse group.
Some people have made billions by selling goods and services to the developing ecosystem, while others have done so by betting on the volatility of cryptocurrencies.
Each month, a sizable amount of new coins and tokens enter the market. Market capitalizations for some of the biggest cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Binance Coin, and Dogecoin, are in the billions of dollars.
These crypto billionaires who have amassed fortune have done so by developing goods to expand the cryptocurrency’s still-developing ecosystem. As an illustration, some people have developed exchanges for trading cryptocurrencies and their derivatives.
It has been utilized by others to produce financial goods and tokens that have made millions of dollars. The rise in popularity and price of Bitcoin has helped their goods and services. We, however, hope you enjoy reading our list of the top 10 richest crypto traders in the world.
FAQs About The Top 10 Richest Crypto Traders In The World
Here are the FAQs of the top 10 richest crypto traders in the world
Who Is the Richest Person in Cryptocurrency?
Changpeng Zhao—founder of the cryptocurrency exchange Binance is the richest person in cryptocurrencies.
The 19th richest person in the world is CZ, the CEO and founder of Binance. According to Forbes, he owns at least 70% of Binance. A minor amount of Bitcoin and an unspecified number of BNB, Binance’s native token, are also held by the 44-year-old.
Following the aforementioned public listing agreement, Binance intends to make a sizable investment in the parent company that would own Forbes.
More than 600 cryptocurrencies are currently available on Binance, which has over 90 million users. The CEO, who owns around 70% of the company, makes enormous profits as a result of the effort.
Can You Become A Billionaire From Cryptocurrencies?
Contrary to popular belief, the richest people in the cryptocurrency ecosystem have not done so through making investments. Instead, they have made money by spotting holes in the crypto ecosystem and creating goods or services to fill those holes.
Soucres: Wikipedia, Forbes, Investopedia