Many people hope to make a fortune and achieve financial freedom through cryptocurrency. However, is cryptocurrency really that easy to make money? Who are the top five cryptocurrency billionaires in the world?
Five Crypto Billionaires Out!
The Web3 era has arrived! A new group of billionaires have emerged in the world, creating a lot of wealth through blockchain technology and virtual assets.
This group of people has redefined the concept of wealth creation in the 21st century and demonstrated the endless possibilities of the cryptocurrency market through innovative businesses, strategic acumen, and even unconventional investment choices.
However, the crypto industry changes very quickly, and former billionaires may lose a lot of wealth in an instant due to market turmoil or major events in the cryptocurrency world.
Who are the billionaires who have become rich from the crypto industry this year? The following article will sort out the five billionaires in the crypto industry in 2023.
In addition, although the data of crypto wallets are public and transparent on the chain, because these wallet addresses are anonymous, it is not necessarily possible to determine who the account owner is. Therefore, we can only rank the cryptocurrency masters who have public wallet addresses and personal assets.
Who are the cryptocurrency billionaires?
Richest person 1: Changpeng Zhao (CZ), founder and CEO of Binance exchange
Speaking of celebrities in the crypto industry, Changpeng Zhao, CEO of the world's largest exchange, is definitely a well-known representative.
He founded Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, which also highlights his prominent position in the crypto industry. Although it may not be as well-known as another exchange Coinbase for American customers, it offers a wider variety of tokens and derivatives. According to Forbes, Zhao Changpeng's net worth in May 2023 is US$10.5 billion.
Zhao Changpeng immigrated to Canada at the age of 13 and was exposed to Bitcoin in a poker game with his friends. After that, he devoted himself to the field of cryptocurrency and even sold his apartment for Bitcoin in 2014.
The exchange was established in China in 2017 and processed billions of dollars in transactions every day. However, in September 2017, the government banned cryptocurrency trading, so it moved its servers and headquarters to Japan.
Recently, as governments around the world are concerned that cryptocurrencies may cause money laundering and fraud, Binance has faced regulatory scrutiny and investigations in the United States, Europe, and Asia. However, Binance has denied all wrongdoing.
Richest person 2: Chris Larsen, co-founder of Ripple
Chris Larsen and Jed McCaleb co-founded blockchain payments company Ripple.
Chris is another well-known figure in the cryptocurrency space, having co-founded blockchain payments company Ripple with Jed McCaleb. According to Forbes, Brian's net worth in May 2023 is $2.6 billion.
Before the advent of cryptocurrencies, Chris co-founded the online mortgage lender e-Loan in 1996, which was later sold to Yahoo.
Chris believes that "the value of the Internet is not just to provide a new financial method. I think fundamentally, this represents the last step of globalization."
Ripple's native cryptocurrency, XRP, is currently ranked the world's sixth largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization and allows users to transfer money at very low fees.
However, Ripple also has its share of problems and troubles, such as being accused by the U.S. government of being an unregistered security and engaging in misleading advertising in its early days.
3. Brian Armstrong, Founder and CEO of Coinbase
Brian Armstrong, founder and CEO of Coinbase, is another giant in the cryptocurrency industry.
Coinbase is the largest cryptocurrency exchange in North America and the second largest exchange in the world, so Brian naturally has a lot of influence in this crypto market. According to Forbes, Brian's net worth in May 2023 was $2.5 billion.
Brian, a former software engineer at Airbnb, co-founded the exchange in 2012 and owns a 19% stake in Coinbase.
Brian said he founded Coinbase because he wanted the world to have a "global open financial system that promotes innovation and freedom." Because of its simple and easy-to-understand interface and a certain degree of credibility, Coinbase is considered the best entry point for retail investors to join the crypto ecosystem.
As the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States, Coinbase has naturally come under scrutiny from the U.S. government. However, Coinbase quickly fought back, asking a federal court to force the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to respond to its request to “clarify cryptocurrency regulations.”
Richest person 4: Jed McCaleb, co-founder of Ripple
Jed is a well-known figure in the cryptocurrency field because he has a lot of entrepreneurial experience in the crypto field, including the exchange Mt. Gox, blockchain payment Ripple and payment system Stellar. According to Forbes data, Brian's net worth in May 2023 is $2.4 billion.
Jed founded the exchange Mt. Gox in 2010. However, in 2012, the exchange was hacked and nearly $460 million in cryptocurrency was stolen. A year later, Jed sold the exchange.
Later, Jed and several co-founders founded the blockchain payment Ripple, but soon disagreed with others. So in 2014, he co-founded the payment system Stellar again, becoming a competitor of Ripple.
Most of Jed's wealth comes from the 9 billion XRP he held as a co-founder of Ripple. However, he sold all of his XRP in July 2022.
5. Winklevoss Twins
Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss sued Facebook for stealing their idea and were awarded $65 million in damages.
They invested their earnings in cryptocurrencies, and after the price of Bitcoin soared at the end of 2017, they became the first billionaires in the crypto world. According to Forbes, the Winklevoss brothers' net worth in May 2023 was $1.5 billion each.
While the majority of their wealth comes from cryptocurrency investments, the Winklevoss twins are also the founders of Winklevoss Capital Management and the Gemini cryptocurrency exchange.
How to make a fortune with cryptocurrency?
According to Forbes' real-time billionaires list, Zhao Changpeng, the founder of cryptocurrency exchange Binance, is currently the richest man in the cryptocurrency field.
However, it is said that Satoshi Nakamoto, the founder of Bitcoin, holds more than 1 million Bitcoins, but no one knows the true identity of Satoshi Nakamoto.
However, it is somewhat different from what most people imagine about "making a lot of money from cryptocurrencies". These billionaires do not make their fortunes simply by "buying and selling cryptocurrencies", but by "discovering the deficiencies of the crypto ecosystem and providing products or services".
Therefore, if you want to become the next billionaire who "makes a lot of money from cryptocurrency", the best advice is not to buy meme coins and wait for the price to explode, but to observe the problems of the existing ecosystem and come up with good solutions. #币安合约锦标赛
