Top Bitcoin Whale Wallet Owners: Biggest BTC Addresses from the Blockchain World in 2019
The past decade has seen a new crop of billionaires and millionaires spring out of the cryptocurrency industry. The boom witnessed on Bitcoin’s price in particular, back in 2011 and 2017 played a huge role in making this new batch of wealthy persons.
The list is heavily dominated with early investors in the coin who HODL’d BTC through the years. Others got rich in BTC through other methods such as mining and running payment startups for cryptocurrencies.
Here is the list of the richest personalities with Bitcoin today.
8. Barry Silbert
As one of the earliest investors in Bitcoin, Barry is currently worth close to $200 million in his investments in Bitcoin. He was one of the buyers during the US government’s auction of Silk road BTC where he bought 48,000 BTC at a value of $350 USD each.
7. Tim Draper
The billionaire is known for his initial investment in Skype and subsequent riches from Bitcoin. Tim also nabbed 30,000 BTC at the government auction worth $17 million dollars. His investment today is closing in on $150 million USD making him one of the largest holders of BTC in the world today. The cryptocurrency enthusiast has placed more funds in Tezos, a coin that has been on the rise since the start of 2019.
6. Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss
The Winklevoss twins are well known for the failed attempt to take control of Facebook and the current push to launch Bitcoin backed ETFs. The two made a purchase of $11 million USD worth of Bitcoin back in 2013, totaling to 1% of the total Bitcoins at the time. Their investment in BTC could potentially be worth over $400 million USD as per Forbes calculations.
5. Charlie Sherem
One of the facilitators of the Silk Road operative, Charlie Sherem, is an early adopter of Bitcoin. He bought Bitcoin in the thousands when still at $3 dollars which could potentially earn him hundreds of millions of dollars with today’s $4,100 USD price tag. He launched a cryptocurrency exchange platform, Bitinstant and later in 2016 founded Intellysys Capital.
4. Jihan Wu
Jihan Wu is one of the richest persons in China, having co-founded the largest bitcoin mining firm, Bitmain. Jihan is currently ranked as the highest earning cryptocurrency personalities and is worth $2.3 billion USD.
3. Micree Zhan
The other co-founder of Bitmain, Micree Zhan, is also heavily invested in Bitcoin. He is also one of the top richest personalities in China with a total wealth of $2.4 Billion USD.
2. FBI
While this list is filled with rich individuals and early adopters of Bitcoin, the FBI ranks as one of the largest holders of BTC. The bureau was the center organization in shutting down Silk Road and confiscated 144,000 BTC in the process. The authority decided to sell off the BTC through an auction leaving them with a number of BTC. If the FBI held on to the BTC, it would be the one of the largest holder of the coin with over $567 million in its coffers.
1. Satoshi Nakamoto
The biggest holder of Bitcoins is the anonymous creator of the coin, Satoshi Nakamoto. The exact amount of Bitcoins held by the founder of web 4.0 is not known but the first block, which is said to belong to the figure holds over 900,000 BTC, worth close to $4 billion USD today.
Most of the Bitcoin holders do not disclose their investments which makes it difficult to make a comprehensive list. However, the personalities above rank among the top holders of Bitcoin in the world today.
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