Crypto Billionaires Lose $116bn –Forbes
A turbulent storm in the cryptocurrency market has wiped off large chunk of wealth domiciled across various trading exchange platforms following large falloffs in prices of major digital assets in the financial year 2022. This has forced investment sentiment downward while market cap of all digital currencies trend below $900 billion.
According to a recent report by Forbes, crypto billionaires lost a total of $116 billion during the year. In total, crypto market capitalisation has declined more than $2 trillion and some billionaires, and corporate investors have seen their net position drained strongly.
The decline, according to some analysts have been unprecedented following key global developments including Russia-Ukraine war, post covid-19 pressures on global economy and FTX bankruptcy among others.
Forbes stated that the bear market has seen $116 billion drained from the pockets of investors in the past nine months. It noted that the loss represents the combined personal equity of 17 persons in the space, with over 15 of those persons losing more than half their fortunes since March 2022.
Due to persistent drop and investors scuffle in the market, Forbes said 10 names were consequently removed from the cryptocurrency billionaires list.
Cointelegraph reported that one of the biggest losses was realized by Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao who is March 70% stake in Binance was valued at a whopping $65 billion but is now only worth $4.5 billion.
Post-pandemic economic shock, which triggered waves of inflation and rising interest rates have taken capital out of a speculative cryptocurrency ecosystem. Major losses can also be attributed to the CEOs of other cryptocurrency exchanges.
Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, had an estimated net worth of $6 billion in March but is now only worth $1.5 billion. Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen has reduced by more than half, dropping from $4.3 billion in March to $2.1 billion as it stands.
The Winklevoss twins of Gemini were valued at $4 billion each earlier in the year but are now each only worth around $1.1 billion.
Some of the biggest losses seen in 2022, were seen by FTX co-founders Sam Bankman-Fried and Gary Wang. Their fortunes stood at $24 billion and $5.9 billion respectively but stood at $0 as of December.
The world’s richest crypto billionaires as of April, 2022
- Changpeng Zhao — Binance: $65 billion
- Sam Bankman-Fried — FTX: $24 billion
- Brian Armstrong — Coinbase: $6.6 billion
- Gary Wang — FTX: $5.9 billion
- Chris Larsen — Ripple: $4.3 billion
- Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler Winklevoss — Bitcoin: $4 billion each
- Song Chi-hyung — Upbit: $3.7 billion
- Barry Silbert — Digital Currency Group: $3.2 billion
- Jed McCaleb — Ripple, Stellar: $2.5 billion
#Crypto Billionaires Lose $116bn –Forbes
