There is no information about these whales on the Forbes Billionaires list.
Perhaps no industry has contributed more colorful characters to the global elite than cryptocurrency. Over the past decade, the digital asset industry has produced billionaires in almost equal measure from geeks, thieves, corporate lawsuits and mysterious anonymous internet users.
Take the case of an anonymous hacker who stole over $2 million worth of BTC and ETH from a now-shuttered Hong Kong cryptocurrency exchange in 2016. The hacker hadn’t touched his coins since absconding with the funds eight years earlier. Today, the loot is valued at a whopping $542 million and counting.
And then there’s Rain Lohmus, an Estonian businessman who spent a measly $75,000 to buy 250,000 ETH during the Ethereum presale in 2014. Lohmus is now the world’s largest individual holder of ETH, with just one problem: He lost the private keys to his Ethereum wallet a few years ago. Lohmus’s cryptocurrency holdings (which he may never be able to access) are currently worth approximately $869 million.
However, even these huge fortunes didn’t make the final list of the richest people in crypto in 2024. Not even close.
On Tuesday, Forbes released its annual list of the world’s billionaires. Below, I’ve compiled a list of the crypto industry figures (and anonymous wallets believed to be held by individuals) with the largest fortunes to date. The list was determined using on-chain data analyzed by intelligence firms Arkham and Nansen, data compiled by Forbes and Bloomberg, and public information.
The list looks a lot different than it did two years ago, when NFTs were the hot new thing and the first word most people associated with FTX was “basketball.” For example, FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried (the second-richest person in crypto in 2022) would still be at the top of the list if he hadn’t been sentenced to 25 years in federal prison last week for fraud and conspiracy. A court ordered him to forfeit $11 billion.
Many other crypto elites lost their billionaire status during the last bear market. For example, Digital Currency Group (DCG) founder Barry Silbert, who was worth more than $3 billion in 2022, according to Bloomberg, took a huge hit to his net worth after he was personally embroiled in a multi-billion dollar lawsuit by the New York Attorney General and former business partners Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss. The majority of Silbert's net worth comes from his 40% stake in DCG, which is currently at risk due to debt and legal issues.
Song Chi-hyung and Kim Hyoung-nyon, co-founders of South Korean cryptocurrency giant Dunamu, were worth $3.7 billion and $1.9 billion, respectively, in 2022 based on their stakes in the company. But during 2023, Dunamu’s profits shrank by more than 80%, knocking both men out of the ranks of cryptocurrency’s super elite.
Some people’s fall from billionaire status has more to do with methodology than bad luck. For example, Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin was once estimated to control a cryptocurrency fortune worth nearly $5 billion. However, almost all of this estimate stemmed from rumors that Lubin held a large portion of the ETH in circulation.
However, at Consensus 2022, Lubin said that he has never owned “even close to 0.5%” of the circulating supply of ETH. Given Ethereum’s history (assuming Lubin is telling the truth), this means that the cryptocurrency founder has never owned anything close to $1 billion worth of ETH. Moreover, he apparently used a large portion of his ETH wealth to fund ConsenSys, the blockchain project incubator he founded in 2014. (Decrypt spun out of ConsenSys in 2022.)
Perhaps surprisingly, even the most recognizable face in the cryptocurrency space—Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin—doesn’t have the wealth to make it into the industry’s top echelon. Of course, he might have if he wasn’t so benevolent: In 2021, Vitalik donated nearly $1.5 billion in ETH and Shiba Inu to India, which was hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic.
Buterin currently holds about $863 million worth of cryptocurrency, the vast majority of which is ETH. He also owns an undisclosed amount of shares in Ethereum software company Starkware - although not enough to get him over the $2 billion threshold (the threshold for this year's rich list).
Without further ado, here are the richest players in the cryptocurrency industry, ranked by the amount of wealth they’ve accumulated solely from cryptocurrencies and stakes in cryptocurrency companies.
1) Satoshi Nakamoto ($76.67 billion)
The king of kings of cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin’s mysterious creator owns about 1.1 million bitcoins and has never touched them.
2) Changpeng Zhao ($47.7 billion)
The Binance founder reportedly owns 90% of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. Even after settling a $4.3 billion lawsuit with the U.S. government in the fall and pleading guilty to money laundering, he remains the richest person in the cryptocurrency space.
3) Brian Armstrong ($11.5 billion)
Coinbase founder Brian Armstrong owns about 16% of the U.S. cryptocurrency exchange, which has quadrupled in value in the last year.
4) Giancarlo Devasini ($9.2 billion)
Tether’s chief financial officer is estimated to be the company’s largest single shareholder, reportedly owning 47% of the stablecoin issuer. Tether is the third-largest cryptocurrency by market value and one of the world’s largest holders of Bitcoin.
5) Anonymous Bitcoin Whale#1($6.59 billion)
Little is known about this crypto wallet and analysts believe it does not belong to any crypto company or government, making this whale the largest anonymous Bitcoin holder other than Satoshi Nakamoto. After five years of dormancy, it began moving billions of dollars worth of Bitcoin last week.
6) Mt. Gox hack ($5.57 billion)
In 2011, the crypto world was shocked by the hack of Mt. Gox, an early Bitcoin exchange. The thieves made off with hundreds of thousands of Bitcoins, now worth tens of billions of dollars. Most of the funds were stored in a wallet that has remained dormant since then. Last summer, federal prosecutors brought charges against two Russian men.
7) Michael Saylor ($5 billion)
Saylor, one of Bitcoin’s most public and die-hard advocates, founded MicroStrategy, which owns more than $13 billion worth of Bitcoin. In addition to owning about 12% of MicroStrategy, Saylor claims to personally own more than $1.2 billion worth of Bitcoin.
8) Anonymous Bitcoin Whale#2($4.13 billion)
This major anonymous holder of Bitcoin controls 0.31% of all BTC in circulation. The whale first surfaced in October 2021 and was active as recently as January.
9) Jean-Louis van de Velde ($3.9 billion)
Tether’s mysterious former CEO, who currently serves as CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex, reportedly owns 20% of the thriving stablecoin issuer.
10) Anonymous Bitcoin Whale#3($3.76 billion)
The second-largest Bitcoin whale has not completed a single transaction since receiving 53,880 BTC in the spring of 2014.
11) Anonymous Bitcoin Whale#4($3.73 billion)
In September 2022, the crypto wallet received more than 54,000 BTC from Bitfinex. The company completed several transactions in 2023 and then fell silent.
12) Anonymous Bitcoin Whale#5($3.6 billion)
In 2018, this Bitcoin whale received more than 51,000 BTC in multiple transactions, which is 0.27% of all Bitcoin in circulation. Since then, it has not made any sound.
13) Fred Ehrsam ($3.2 billion)
The Coinbase co-founder later moved on to Paradigm, a cryptocurrency investment firm he also co-founded. The bulk of his wealth comes from the 6% of Coinbase he still owns.
14) Chris Larsen ($3.2 billion)
Larsen is the co-founder of Ripple, the crypto company behind the XRP token. After enduring a brutal lawsuit by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regarding XRP, Larsen was sued by the SEC in the fall in a declining personal capacity. The landmark case against Ripple is still ongoing, but the signs look encouraging for the company.
15) Matthew Rozak ($3.1 billion)
Roszak is co-founder and chairman of Bloq, a startup that advises clients such as traditional banks on how to store digital assets.
16) Anonymous Bitcoin Whale#6($3.07 billion)
The last Bitcoin whale on the list received 44,000 BTC in late 2019 and has been inactive since then.
17) Jed McCaleb ($2.9 billion)
McCaleb has a long history in the cryptocurrency space, having founded the influential Mt. Gox exchange in 2010. He then co-founded Ripple Labs and soon after launched Ripple competitor Stellar. The majority of his wealth comes from the XRP he accumulated during his time at Ripple.
18) Cameron Winklevoss ($2.7 billion)
The man who, along with his identical twin Tyler (below), accused Mark Zuckerberg of stealing Facebook’s idea has now found a second identity in life as a cryptocurrency evangelist. The Winklevii co-founded cryptocurrency exchange Gemini, which was embroiled in the bankruptcy of crypto lending company Genesis following the 2022 crypto market crash. Crucially (for a list like this), the brothers also own an estimated 70,000 BTC – enough to make them billionaires in their own right.
19) Tyler Winklevoss ($2.7 billion)
20) Mike Novogratz ($2.5 billion)
Galaxy Digital’s CEO owns an estimated $2 billion worth of shares in the cryptocurrency investment firm, which is currently seeking to list an Ethereum spot ETF on Wall Street. Novogratz also reportedly holds around $500 million worth of BTC.
21) Stuart Hoegner ($2.5 billion)
Tether’s general counsel owns an estimated 13% of the company, which has had its fair share of legal troubles over the years.
22) Tim Draper ($2 billion)
Draper, who comes from the more traditional Silicon Valley venture capital world, purchased nearly 30,000 bitcoins seized from the dark web marketplace Silk Road in a 2014 U.S. government auction for about $630 each.
