The American business magazine Forbes recently published the company’s 2021 documentation of the wealthiest billionaires in the world. According to the list published annually every March, there are now 12 billionaires that work directly within the cryptocurrency industry and the list of crypto billionaires is 3x larger than last year.
Today’s Crypto Billionaires List
Since March 1987, Forbes has been publishing a list of the world’s wealthiest billionaires compiled in a list for the public to view. Back then the Japanese businessman and real-estate mogul Yoshiaki Tsutsumi was the richest person in 1987 with an estimated wealth of around $20 billion. Since then, and every year after, Forbes has deployed around 50 journalists to find and track the globe’s richest people. In 2021, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos is the wealthiest man in the world with an estimated $177 billion. Bezos was the first human on earth to be listed on Forbes as a centibillionaire.
Bezos is followed by the dogecoin (DOGE) fan and Tesla CEO Elon Musk with 151 billion. Then there is Bernard Arnault and his family who own companies like Sephora and Louis Vuitton and they hold around $150 billion in net worth. Those three are followed by Microsoft’s Bill Gates ($124B) and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg ($97B). In 2021, Forbe’s list of global billionaires now includes 12 crypto billionaires who are directly associated with the digital currency industry. Elon Musk could be considered a crypto billionaire, but most would say he’s more of a proponent than someone infused within the blockchain industry.
Another person not mentioned among 2021’s crypto billionaires is Satoshi Nakamoto. Using today’s exchange rates, Nakamoto could be worth more than $59 billion. The 12 crypto billionaires noted in this year’s list work with digital currency exchanges or are venture capitalists who invest heavily in crypto startups. Forbes notes that the FTX Exchange CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried is the wealthiest crypto billionaire with $8.7 billion today. The CEO of Coinbase, Brian Armstrong, is the second wealthiest with around $6.5 billion. The next two people are the Winklevoss Twins, founders of the Gemini Exchange with a collective net worth of around $6 billion.
A Few Changes This Year Could Increase the 2022 Crypto Billionaires List
The cofounder of Ripple Labs Chris Larsen holds the fourth position with $3.5 billion in wealth. The CEO of Microstrategy Michael Saylor is noted in the list for having $2.3 billion. Another Ripple cofounder is also mentioned on Forbes’ 2021 billionaire list as Jed McCaleb is estimated to have around $2 billion. The cofounder of Coinbase Fred Ersham has around $1.9 billion and ChangPeng Zhao (CZ) from Binance holds the exact same amount as Ersham.
The last three people on the list include Digital Currency Group’s Barry Silbert ($1.6B), Bloq’s Matthew Roszak ($1.5B), and the well known venture capitalist Tim Draper. Alongside this, there may even be a number of crypto people that are not mentioned on the Forbes billionaire list.
Just recently, in an interview with Angie Lau from Forkast News, Roger Ver touched upon not making the list and said that it might not be accurate. Moreover, Ver explained that when a few companies he’s invested in go public, he plans to have “several billion dollars worth of capital” and $2 billion will be dedicated to the Bitcoin Cash network and spreading adoption.
It will be interesting to see how things look in the 2022 list written and published by the American business magazine especially for the number of crypto people listed. By then the size of the crypto economy may be much larger, a bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) could get approved, and companies like Coinbase going public may happen a lot more often. All three of these factors will produce a lot more crypto billionaires next year if they come to fruition.
What do you think about the 2021 crypto billionaires listed this year? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.
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