11 Richest Crypto Billionaires: How You Can Join Them and Make a Fortune
Written by
Martin Dasko
Edited by
Rebekah Evans
Commitment to Our Readers
GOBankingRates' editorial team is committed to bringing you unbiased reviews and information. We use data-driven methodologies to evaluate financial products and services - our reviews and ratings are not influenced by advertisers. You can read more about our editorial guidelines and our products and services review methodology.
20 Years
Helping You Live Richer
Reviewed
by Experts
Trusted by
Millions of Readers
In the world of cryptocurrency, fortunes can quickly change. Some of the world’s richest crypto billionaires helped build the blockchain world at the dawn of the industry. Others are new arrivals who developed, innovated and cashed in later down the road — but either way, they’re all sitting pretty today.
Keep reading to learn about the people who own the world’s greatest digital fortunes.
Also here are seven apps billionaires tend to use to manage their wealth.
Are There Any Crypto Billionaires?
While most members of the three-comma club have multiple sources of income, some billionaires have blockchain technology to thank for the bulk of their riches. The following is an introduction to the wealthiest crypto magnates of all.
Matthew Roszak
Net worth: $1.8 billion
Matthew Roszak rose to blockchain fame and fortune when he co-founded Bloq, which helps banks store crypto and facilitates stablecoin transactions for companies. He worked in venture capital and as an entrepreneur in the 1990s and 2000s before landing in legal trouble in the mid-aughts when he settled insider trading charges.
According to Forbes, he got into the crypto game early and he built his portfolio in 2012.
The Winklevoss Twins
Net worth: $2.7 billion each
For the most important twins in tech history, it’s only natural that even Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss’s net worths would be identical. The famous Facebook brothers co-founded the crypto exchange Gemini in 2014, making them major players on the cutting edge of both the social media and blockchain revolutions — and they leveraged the first to win the second.
According to Forbes, they used their $65 million legal settlement with Mark Zuckerberg to stockpile bitcoin.
Today, Gemini processes roughly $30 million in daily trades and the twins own roughly 70,000 bitcoins.
Fred Ehrsam
Net worth: $2.1 billion
Fred Ehrsam first learned about digital currency as an avid “World of Warcraft” player. In 2012, he co-founded Coinbase with Brian Armstrong, who also appears on this list. Coinbase went on to become the largest cryptocurrency exchange in America.
According to Forbes, Ehrsam still owns 4% of the company and sits on the board despite leaving Coinbase in 2017. One year later in 2018, he founded the crypto investment firm Paradigm with over $8 billion in assets.
Tim Draper
Net worth: $2 billion
Descended from a legendary Silicon Valley investing dynasty, Tim Draper is a venture capitalist and founding partner of Draper Fisher Jurvetson. His hundreds of investments include famous companies like Tesla and infamous ones like Theranos.
Thanks!
But according to Forbes, he made his real money on one big blockchain bet. When the federal government raided and shut down the black market website Silk Road, he bought 29,656 bitcoins that the U.S. Marshals confiscated for just $632 per coin — less than $20 million for the entire haul.
Nikil Viswanathan
Net worth: $1.5 billion
Nikil Viswanathan co-founded Alchemy with Joe Lau in 2020 and today, thousands of blockchain and Web3 companies rely on the company’s software. Before founding Alchemy, the duo — both Stanford grads — built Down to Lunch, a meetup app that at one point was No. 1 in the Apple Store.
Joe Lau
Net worth: $1.5 billion
Joe Lau — not to be confused with Hong Kong real estate magnate and fellow billionaire Joseph Lau — co-founded Alchemy in 2020 and currently owns a 26% stake, according to Forbes. The company spun off Alchemy Ventures in 2021 to invest in its current clients’ crypto endeavors.
Jed McCaleb
Net worth: $2.9 billion
Few billionaire crypto pioneers go back as far as Jed McCaleb, who founded Mt. Gox in 2010 as the first legitimate cryptocurrency exchange. Mt. Gox has been a notorious part of crypto folklore since the exchange was hacked in 2014 during the tumultuous early days of bitcoin.
McCaleb sold Mt. Gox one year before the hack. In 2012, he co-founded Ripple with Chris Larsen and according to Forbes, that’s where he made his real money. McCaleb received 9 billion XRP as a Ripple founder and it’s believed that he sold the last of his coins in 2022.
Chris Larsen
Net worth: $3.1 billion
Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen stepped down as CEO at the end of 2016, but he still serves as executive chairman. Larsen was way ahead of the crypto curve, launching Ripple with Jed McCaleb — more on him shortly — in 2012 to facilitate international blockchain payments.
It wasn’t Larsen’s first foray as a digital pioneer either. A generation earlier, he cofounded the home lender e-Loan.
Michael Saylor
Net worth: $3.8 billion
You can’t write up a list of crypto billionaires without mentioning the founder of MicroStrategy, a firm that has turned into a bitcoin investment vehicle recently. In October 2020, Saylor shared that he personally purchased 17,732 bitcoins for $175 million on top of the investments of his firm in the digital asset. The company currently owns around 193,000 bitcoins, which means that it’s the largest corporate owner of the crypto.
Brian Armstrong
Net worth: $6.9 billion
Coinbase Global is the largest crypto exchange in America and as CEO, Brian Armstrong is in charge of it all. The former Airbnb software engineer co-founded Coinbase at the dawn of the crypto era in 2012 with Fred Ehrsam. The company went public in 2021 and trades on the Nasdaq. At one point, Coinbase topped a market cap of $100 billion.
Armstrong currently owns roughly 19% of the company’s shares.
Changpeng Zhao
Net worth: $57.4 billion
Changpeng Zhao is the human embodiment of the ups and downs of the crypto industry. In 2021, he was worth just $1.9 billion. At the start of 2022, he was worth $65 billion and then, at one point, he was worth less than $5 billion. As of September 2024, his net worth is $56.4 billion, which is only appropriate considering how volatile cryptocurrency can be.
The Chinese-Canadian coder founded Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange and served as its CEO until he stepped down in late 2023, as reported by CNBC News. Zhao was sentenced to four months in prison in April 2024 after pleading guilty to charges of enabling money laundering at his crypto exchange.
Best Practices for How To Make Money With Crypto
A billion dollars doesn’t come easy and if you’re looking to make money from crypto, it’s crucial to remember that there are many scams in this space. The Better Business Bureau disclosed that 80% of those who were targeted by some sort of crypto-related fraud ended up losing money, with a median loss of $3,800. The report also noted this was the riskiest type of scam in 2023. While there’s money to be made in seeing your digital assets appreciate in value or staking crypto, you have to be extremely careful with how you engage in this space.
As you can see from the profiles of the world’s blockchain billionaires, most came into their fortunes not by purchasing coins but by developing technologies, processes or companies that added value to the industry or the companies that rely on it. High volatility is a fact of crypto investing — a trader could easily go from six figures to seven and back down to six in a single trading day.
This is why it’s important to understand the inherent risks of investing in speculative assets. While there are stories of those who made significant amounts of money from meme coins, many retail investors end up losing massive amounts of money. As always, we urge you to conduct your due diligence when comparing investment options and to keep in mind that when something seems too good to be true, it usually is.
All net worth information has been sourced from Forbes.
More From GOBankingRates
