American media company and business magazine Forbes has named Changpeng Zhao and Brian Armstrong as two of the world’s richest crypto billionaires this year.
CEO of Binance tops Forbes wealthiest crypto billionaires list
In a report published by Forbes 5th of April, there was an exclusive list of 19 of the world’s billionaires whose net worths are directly tied to cryptocurrencies – a list that includes 7 newcomers from last year’s 12.
Topping the list are Binance’s Changpeng Zhao with a net worth of $65bn, FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried having a net worth of $24bn and Coinbase’s Brian Armstrong with a total net worth of $6.6bn in that order.
It is not surprising that the top 3 on the list are executive officers of crypto exchanges. This is due to the fact that over the past half a decade, there has been growing individual and institutional interest in cryptocurrencies and subsequently, more influx of customers amounting to higher trading volumes.
How the billionaires built their empires
Binance, for example, has seen a steady increase in its trading volume over the years. The crypto exchange is the largest in the world accounting for $7.7 trillion crypto trading volume in 2021 with an annual revenue of $16 billion.
The exchange was launched in Hong Kong by Chinese-Canadian business executive Changpeng “CZ” Zhao in 2017 who has since then been the CEO. Zhao owns about 70% of Binance.
Sam Bankman-Fried alongside fellow MIT graduate Gary Wang started FTX in 2019. FTX is now one of the largest crypto exchanges in the world despite being founded just three years ago. Bankman-Fried owns about 54% of FTX, and hence, his wealth is directly tied to the firm’s valuation which saw a $7.7 billion increase when FTX reached a $32 billion valuation in January this year, making it more valuable than NASDAQ, and even Twitter.
Coinbase is the largest US-based crypto exchange. Coinbase revealed a total trading volume of $200 billion to date as at Q1 2022. The company was made public by a direct listing on NASDAQ in April 2021 and had an $86 billion valuation, making it higher than NASDAQ itself. Armstrong owns 19% of Coinbase shares.
On the list also are FTX’s co-founder Gary Wang, chairman of Ripple Chris Larsen the Winklevoss brothers (Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss) whose wealths rose from investing in BTC which they began buying in 2012.
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