Ever since 1982, Forbes has been releasing an annual list of the 400 wealthiest Americans, all of whom are, of course, billionaires. But on Tuesday, the magazine released a new list, one that is indicative of the times we're living in: the wealthiest people in cryptocurrency.
Because cryptocurrency is, by nature, an encrypted payment system, the net worth of these bitcoin moguls isn't as easy to ascertain as those who made their millions the old-fashioned way. And, indeed, the magazine admitted the "near certainty that we've missed some people and that some of our estimates are wide of the mark."
But Forbes described what sounds like as diligent of a process as possible in gathering the numbers, which they said were based on "estimated holdings of cryptocurrencies (a few provided proof), post-tax profits from trading crypto-assets and stakes in crypto-related businesses," with prices locked on Jan. 19, 2018. All 19 of the people on their list had to have made at least $350 million to make the cut, which isn't too shabby for a new financial system. Of them, the 10 youngest are all under 40—just like the 14 Youngest Billionaires in America.
1 | Valeriy Vavilov
Age: 38
Estimated Crypto Net Worth: $500-$700 million.
As a kid growing up in Latvia in the 1980s, he watched his parents lose everything when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, and "money became paper." In 2011, he cofounded Bitfury, an Amsterdam-based startup that "mines" Bitcoin. At first, he couldn't get any investors interested in the technology. Now, the 400-person company is on track to bring in $400 million in revenue in 2018.
Song Chi-Hyung
Age: 38
Estimated Crypto Net Worth: $350-500 million.
Just four months ago, this Seoul National University graduate launched the cryptocurrency exchange Upbit. It is now the largest cryptocurrency exchange in South Korea, which is no small feat, given that the country is one of the top three Bitcoin traders in the world.
3 | Brock Pierce
Age: 37
Estimated Crypto Net Worth: $700-$1 Billion.
If this Minnesota kid looks familiar, it's because he was a 90s Disney star, one who played in both The Mighty Ducks and First Kid. As an adult, he's making everyone jealous all over again, as a chairman to Bitcoin Foundation, a nonprofit organization aiming to make Bitcoin a globally accepted method of exchanging and storing value without third parties.
4 | Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss
Age: 36
Estimated Crypto Net Worth: $900-$1.1 Billion.
Technically, these are two separate people, but you can't mention one in business without mentioning the other in the same breath. In 2013, the two took the $65 million settlement they got from a lawsuit with Mark Zuckerberg and invested it into bitcoin. Their gamble paid off, and now they own their own New York based virtual currency exchange called Gemini. You can learn more about how the brothers became the first know bitcoin billionaires in Steal the Winklevoss Twins Secrets for Success.
5 | Brian Armstrong
Age: 35
Estimated Crypto Net Worth: $900-$1.1 Billion.
In 2012, back when everyone was still reacting with skepticism to this digital gold rush, Armstrong went ahead and set up Coinbase, a digital currency exchange headquartered in San Francisco that serves as the entry point to all cryptocurrency.
6 | Dan Larimer
Age: 35
Estimated Crypto Net Worth: $600-$700 million.
A former computer programmer in the military industrial complex, Larimer had an existential crisis in 2007, when he realized he "wanted to move from working on weapons of destruction to creating systems that could help provide life, liberty and property for mankind." In 2013, he launched a community-run crypto-exchange called BitShares, then created a blockchain-based social network, Steemit, whose value has surged 1.4 billion. He is now the CTO of the cryptocurrency startup Block One.
7 | Brendan Blumer
Age: 31
Estimated Crypto Net Worth: $600-$700 million.
As a teenager in Iowa, Blumer first dabbled in virtual currencies by selling weapons and houses on World of Warcraft. After graduating from high school, his company, Gamecliff, was acquired by IGE, so he moved to Hong Kong to run operations in its HQ. In 2007, he founded a company selling in-game avatars that quickly began making a profit of $1 million a month. Now the CEO Block One, he became famous for pulling off the world's biggest token sale, with $1 billion raised so far.
8 | Charles Hoskinson
Age: 30
Estimated Crypto Net Worth: $500-$600 million.
Everyone thought Hoskinson was crazy when he decided to quit consulting to start the online school the Bitcoin Education Project in 2013. But that's how he met Buterin, one of the eight original cofounders of Ethereum. After leaving over creative differences, he created IOHK, an engineering company that builds cryptocurrencies and blockchains for corporations,
9 | Vitalik Buterin
Age:24
Estimated Crypto Net Worth: $400-$500 million.
Born in the vicinity of Moscow, Buterin moved to Canada at the age of six, when his family immigrated in search of a better life. His school immediately recognized that he had an enormous flair for math, and as a teenager (aka like 5 years ago), he founded a magazine about Bitcoin after learning about cryptocurrency from his father, a computer programmer. He briefly attended the University of Waterloo, but dropped out when he received the Tiel Fellowship, which offers $100,000 over the course of two years to work on a scientific experiment or a startup. What he do with that time? Oh, yea, he created Ethereum.
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