There’s no shortage of stories about people investing in cryptocurrencies and amassing enormous amounts of wealth. Recently, some of these investors and entrepreneurs have crossed the line into the billionaire club. Let’s take a look at who these people are, what their net worth is, why they’re important to cryptocurrency, and how they made it big in the world of digital currencies.

Chris Larsen Net Worth

$2.6bn

One of the biggest fish in the pond of cryptocurrency is Chris Larsen. With a current net worth from crypto exceeding $4 billion, Larsen is one of the most recognizable names in cryptocurrency.

In 1992, Larsen co-founded the online mortgage business company, E-Loan. He cited the internet as a great new tool which would make the real estate sector more efficient. Therefore, he established a company which would allow users to get around commissions and fees commonly associated with agents.

Larsen and his E-Loan partner sold part of their company to Yahoo in 1998 for a cool $25 million. The pair gave Yahoo a 23% stake, which meant they retained majority control of E-Loan. The following year, E-Loan was worth an estimated $1 billion.

In 2005 Larsen stepped away from E-Loan and established the first peer-to-peer lending website. Prosper Marketplace was an immediate success and processed well over $120 million worth of loan by the time Larsen moved on in 2012.

Impact on Cryptocurrency

What a lot of people don’t know is that before developing Ripple, Larsen co-founded a company called OpenCoin in 2012. It was at this time that OpenCoin began to develop Ripple. In 2013, OpenCoin rebranded itself as Ripple Labs.

Larsen helped co-found the Ripply cryptocurrency, which was meant to provide a cheaper and faster transfer network for financial institutions. The vast majority of Larsen’s cryptocurrency wealth resides in the 5.2 billion Ripple (XRP) tokens that he owns.

Joseph Lubin Net Worth

$1 – $5 bn

The second cryptocurrency on our list, Joseph Lubin, has earned over $1 billion from digital currencies. Lubin graduated from Princeton in 1987 but remained at the University to work in robotics. Half a decade later, Lubin moved on to Vision Applications and TomandDandy. While at these companies, he worked as both a software engineer and a research scientist.

After six years with these companies, Lubin left for Goldman Sachs. There he worked in the wealth management division for three years. After that time, he took a director position with a company called Blacksmith Technologies.

In 2012, Lubin headed to sunny Jamaica at that time and accepted the position of CEO for SyNerG Music. He spent two and a half years enjoying the warm weather and beautiful beaches before entering into the world of cryptocurrency.

Impact on Cryptocurrency

Lubin founded ConsenSys a few years later, which he currently runs. He oversees a team of 600 workers which serves as a production studio for the Ethereum cryptocurrency. It is heavily suggested that Lubin was one of the largest investors in Ethereum tokens during the 2013 initial coin offering.

Lubin attributes his cryptocurrency wealth to wise investment strategies along with establishing and growing a considerable business in the same space. It’s fair to say his investment in Ethereum (ETH) has treated him well.

Changpeng Zhao Net Worth

$1 – $2 bn

Even though Changpeng Zhao had a humble start, he is now one of the richest people in the cryptocurrency industry with a little over a billion dollars to his name. After finishing school in China, Zhao left for Canada.

During school, however, money was hard to come by. As a result, Zhao worked two jobs to bring in additional income. To this day, Zhao is well-known for his strong work ethic. While in Canada, Zhao went to McGill University where he studied computer science.

It wasn’t long after, however, the Zhao began to show an interest in futures trading and the stock market. Therefore he decided to pursue a different path and entered the finance sector. In 2001, Zhao started off his career in finance at Bloomberg where he was the Head of Tradebook Futures Development.

Fast forward four years and you’ll see Zhao becoming bored at Bloomberg. As a result, he established his own company called Fusion Systems. This company focuses primarily on financial trading and wealth management. It was during his time at Fusion Systems that Zhao developed an interest in Bitcoin.

If you want to know more about Zhao, you can find him on Twitter @cz_binance or follow him on LinkedIn here

Impact on Cryptocurrency

Zhao immersed himself into cryptocurrency soon landing a position as Head Developer with Blockchain.info. Not long after, he moved on to become CTO of OKCoin. From there, Zhao soon took a position with Binance, one of the most well-known and regularly used cryptocurrency exchanges on the globe.

Amazingly, it was Zhao who helped turn Binance into the behemoth it is today. When he joined the team in 2017, there was a lot of work to do within the company. Less than a year later, Zhao managed to turn the exchange into a company that is outperforming large institutions like Deutsche Bank.

The Winklevoss Twins Net Worth

$1 bn due to crypto

Even though it’s well-known that the Winklevoss twins already lived in privilege, they’ve managed to make a name for themselves in cryptocurrency. Currently, each twin is worth roughly $1 billion in cryptocurrency alone.

The pair attended Harvard, at which time they worked with Divya Narendra to establish ConnectU. Unfortunately, the platform failed, though the twins did succeed in suing Mark Zuckerberg for stealing the intellectual property behind ConnectU.

The pair was awarded $65 million and went on to row for the United States in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. After their stint in the Olympics, the twins decided to enter the private equity market, founding a venture capital fund of their own.

Impact on Cryptocurrency

They may have lost out to Zuckerberg in the social media game, but the Winklevoss twins are no slouches themselves. With their settlement from Facebook, the pair bought roughly 1% of the Bitcoins in circulation, dating back to 2012.

Since that time, the twins established Gemini, a US cryptocurrency exchange. Gemini is one of the few exchanges which allow US digital currency investors to trade conventional dollars for digital currencies. With their investment in Bitcoin and the creation of the Gemini exchange, it’s easy to see why the Winklevoss twins are considered pioneers in cryptocurrency.

Vitalik Buterin Net Worth

$400 – $500M

Vitalik Buterin is well-known in the cryptocurrency community. While his net worth has dipped from the nearly half a billion it was at one point, Buterin is still highly regarded and respected, and clearly still a high net worth individual! His start in cryptocurrency began with his father, who introduced Buterin to Bitcoin when he was only 17 years old.

With an avid interest in cryptocurrency, Buterin started blogging as much as possible about Bitcoin. Soon, he saw an opportunity and in 2011 he and Mihai Alisie launched Bitcoin Magazine. A few years later, Buterin attended a cryptocurrency conference which provided the motivation Buterin needed to explore the possibilities of the blockchain. Buterin sought to find a way to build on top of Bitcoin.

After traveling the globe for six months and discussing the possibilities of Bitcoin, Buterin returned to his home and began working on his Ethereum white paper. He published his findings toward the tail end of 2013.

Impact on Cryptocurrency

Even though he was only 24 when he founded Ethereum, Buterin is a very prominent figure in the cryptocurrency sector. This makes perfect sense as Ethereum is the second largest digital currency worldwide.

Of course, Bitcoin is still the big dog. It is easily the most valuable and widely-used cryptocurrency on the planet. However, Ethereum has come forward as a leader as well. This blockchain platform, which Buterin developed, allows for the creation of decentralized applications.

Ethereum isn’t flawless and has had its fair share of problems. It has, however, provided a state-of-the-art blockchain ecosystem which provides features that move beyond the typical transactional abilities of Bitcoin. Currently, Buterin leads the research and development team. He is heavily involved in the development and maintenance of the platform on a daily basis.

Final Word

These are five of the most well-known and wealthiest people in cryptocurrency. Many are billionaires, but all can be considered pioneers and disruptors in the industry. While they may have different backgrounds and followed various paths into cryptocurrency, they all believe in the future of the technology.