Even 20 years ago, the idea of becoming a billionaire through virtual currency seemed fantastic. But the world is changing rapidly, and the ranks of the super-rich are changing with it.
This is how it looks top 10 richest players in the cryptocurrency market in 2020.
10. Satoshi Nakamoto
The exact size of the state is unknown.
The rating of billionaires who have amassed their fortune on cryptocurrencies is opened by a mystery man, "the father of bitcoin." Satoshi Nakamoto is not a name, but a pseudonym, and perhaps behind him is a whole group of people who developed the Bitcoin cryptocurrency protocol.
It is estimated that he (or she, or they) owns about 1 million bitcoins. If true, then Satoshi has a fabulous fortune equivalent to $ 9.3 billion.
9. Joseph Lubin
Condition - from 1 to 5 billion dollars.
The size of Lubin's fortune varies depending on the sources. But one thing is clear - he is the co-founder of the Ethereum project and the founder of ConsenSys, a venture capital firm that specializes in building blockchain applications.
In 2020, Ethereum will have to solve one of the significant problems - scaling. For this purpose, the creators of the network plan to use sharding technology, which is still in development. Within the framework of this strategy, information from the common database is divided into blocks and its distribution over different servers - shards.
8. Brian Armstrong
Condition - $ 1 billion.
For the first time, 37-year-old Brian Armstrong entered the world of digital currency back in 2012, after he became one of the founders of the Coinbase cryptocurrency exchange in San Francisco. It has become a direct crypto gateway to the Western market.
Coinbase has significant industry influence and offers a wide range of services, including cryptocurrency trading and storage, and affiliate income.
Coinbase is currently valued at $ 10 billion, making it one of the most successful crypto companies. This paved the way for Armstrong into the 2020 Forbes Billionaires list.
7. Leon Lee
The fortune is $ 1.1 billion.
Providing convenient tools to safely buy and sell digital assets, Huobi Exchange is one of the largest players in the crypto industry. Its total turnover exceeds $ 3 trillion, and it operates in 170 countries around the world.
The creator of Huobi is Leon Li, one of the richest people in Asia and the seventh richest cryptocurrency owner in the world. Note that in addition to making money, Li is no stranger to charity. Huobi Charity and FCSSC, an international non-profit organization, launched a COVID-19 campaign in May 2020. The funds raised were used to purchase masks and necessary medical equipment for countries in Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America.
6. Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss
Status - $ 1.13 billion.
The Winklevoss owes their entry to the list of cryptocurrency billionaires through a long-standing conflict with Facebook owner Mark Zuckerberg.
Tyler and Cameron filed a lawsuit against Zuckerberg, claiming that his social network originated from the theft of the idea of their ConnectU website, which was a closed social network for students at Harvard and other American universities. After all the litigation, the brothers entered into a settlement agreement with Zuckerberg in the amount of $ 65 million. They invested the money they received in buying bitcoins, which turned them from cryptocurrency millionaires to billionaires.
5. Changpeng Zhao
The fortune is $ 1.2 billion.
As the founder and CEO of Binance, the world's most popular cryptocurrency spot trading platform, Changpeng Zhao has amassed an impressive fortune since launching the exchange in 2017.
Much of Zhao's wealth is likely generated from cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Binance's tokens, Binance Coin (BNB).
4. Star Xu (Xu Mingxing)
The fortune is $ 1.4 billion.
The creator of the OKEx and OKCoin cryptocurrency exchanges, despite his billionaire status, is not one of the untouchables. In 2018, he was detained by the Shanghai police on suspicion of fraud. However, finding no evidence, the police released Xu.
Although the OKCoin exchange, like its founder, is not very well known in the Western world, it is quite popular in the Asian market. Therefore, Star Xu is one of the richest people in China and the world.
3. Jihan Wu
The fortune is $ 1.8 billion.
Another co-owner of Bitmain Technologies Limited and the head of the world's largest mining pool for bitcoin mining - AntPool.
Bitmain Technologies recently became the subject of a dispute between Zhang and Wu, which resulted in Zhang, who was fired from the company, hiring a squad of armed guards to violently control the Beijing Bitmain Shenzhen factory. In response, Wu created a company to decouple the supply chain from the manufacturing process. This corporate drama continues, and it is not yet clear which division will handle the sales and supply of finished equipment.
2. Chris Larsen
The fortune is 2.6 billion dollars.
The second richest crypto pioneer in the world is the co-founder of Ripple, a blockchain-based money transfer and settlement system that uses XRP tokens for transactions.
Before founding Ripple, Larsen also co-founded several other multi-million dollar companies, but they made only a small contribution to its current state.
1. Mikri Zhang
The fortune is $ 3.2 billion.
Mikri Zhang may not be as well-known as the number two on the list, but today he is the richest crypto billionaire in the world. As of June 2020, he possessed a capital of $ 3.2 billion.
Zhang, an electronics engineer by profession, is the co-founder of Bitcoin Bitmain, a mining hardware company. He and fellow co-founder Jihan Wu are currently fighting for the right to run the company.