The 2021 Billionaires List of Cryptocurrency Tycoons

Published in

The Capital

4 min readDec 20, 2021

The new ultra-rich in the United States: a warm welcome for the first time, a list of the country’s wealthiest people includes billionaires that made their money through cryptocurrencies.

It’s projected that the crypto septet of the Forbes 400 is worth $55.1 billion. With a net worth of $22.5 billion, FTX’s 29-year-old CEO Sam Bankman-Fried owns over half of it. Bankman-Fried built a trading platform in under two years that processed $13.8 billion in trading volume. With its $900 Million In Series B investment completed in July, FTX now has a market cap of $18 billion, making it the most prominent cryptocurrency private equity round to date.

Aside from Armstrong, Fred Ehrsam, and Jed McCaleb, all three of Coinbase’s co-founders are novices. Gemini’s proprietors, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, own Coinbase competitor Coinbase, which went public in April with the most extensive listing in history ($86 billion).

Chris Larsen, another co-founder of Ripple and owner of a $2.7 billion fortune, appeared on the list last year. According to current estimations, his net worth has increased to $6 billion.

Increased widespread interest in digital currencies has led to new price records being established by institutional investors. This has led to an increase in the number of crypto millionaires. Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency, has increased by nearly 1,000 percent since the update of last year’s top 10. The total market cap of crypto-currencies recently crossed $1 trillion for the first peak value at $2.4 trillion in May. Since the top 10 list release in 2020, Bitcoin’s price has increased from $10,128 to $50,000.

But this may be only the beginning. Circle, Karen, Ripple, BlockFi, & eToro are among the companies in the field that have declared or hinted at ambitions to go public. The value of prominent private companies in the field will soar due to the influx of venture capital firms, including Andreessen Horowitz’s $2.2 billion crypto fund.

1. Sam Bankman-Fried ($22.5 billion)

With FTX’s $900 million acquisition closed, crypto’s wealthiest billionaire saw his wealth nearly double. Most of his money is invested in FTX’s stock and tokens (FTT).

2. Brian Armstrong ($11.5 billion)

A year after Coinbase had a “watershed” public debut, its CEO and co-founder, Brian Armstrong, has steadily increased his wealth. Coinbase is reported to be 19 percent owned by Armstrong.

3. Chris Larsen ($6 billion)

Ripple co-founder and Chairman Brad Garlinghouse raised his wealth by $3.3 billion. The XRP token’s value grew despite the continuing legal fight with the United States Securities and Exchange charging Ripple of securities law breaches.

4. Tyler Winklevoss and Cameron Winklevoss ($4.3 billion)

In April, Gemini’s twin founders featured on the cover of Forbes’ 2021 World’s Billionaires edition, which was offered like a non-fungible token in the magazine’s store. A digital art piece titled “Merchants of the Metaverse” sold for $333,333 on Nifty Gateway, their digital art portal.

5. Fred Ehrsam ($ 3.5 billion)

He helped build three well-known crypto businesses, including Ripple and Mt. Gox, the first significant BTC exchange he sold before this, was famously attacked, as an early blockchain pioneer named McCaleb. As a co-founder of Ripple, McCaleb’s XRP holdings account for the majority of his net worth.

Final Thoughts

The erratic nature of cryptocurrency prices, which have ranged from $29,000 to $64,000 only this year, can significantly impact the fortunes of crypto-enterprises. In addition, authorities worldwide are becoming increasingly interested in the field as it develops and matures. FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) is a term commonly used in the cryptocurrency world to describe these worries’ concerns. These worries tend to pull the marketplace downward; hence, by implication, much of the riches amassed by the most knowledgeable.