Forbes 400 list has 7 crypto billionaires, $55.1B collective worth

Forbes 400 list of America’s richest individuals of 2021 contains seven billionaires who believed in crypto and its potential and built their fortune in the industry.

The seven crypto billionaires in Forbes 400 have a collective worth of around $55.1 billion. However, Sam Bankman-Fried, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of cryptocurrency exchange platform FTX, with his $22.5 billion worth, contributes in almost half of the total.  

Crypto newcomers in Forbes 400

Excluding Chris Larsen, co-founder of the Blockchain global financial transaction offerer Ripple, all six out of the seven billionaires are newcomers in the Forbes 400 list, including Bankman-Fried. He worked really hard to build one of the biggest trading platforms in just two years. 

Brian Armstrong, Coinbase CEO, is also among one of the six first-timers after the huge success of Coinbase, which broke the records and debuted with the largest direct listing of around $86 billion in April. He has an estimated worth of $11.5 billion.

Jeff Bezos has secured the first position on the overall list with an estimated worth of $201 billion, with Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg sitting at second and third positions. Elon has a net worth of $190.5 billion, and Zukerberg owns $134.5 billion worth of assets.

Coming back to crypto billionaires, the other newcomers are Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, owners of the famous crypto exchange and custodian Gemini having $4.3 billion worth each; Fred Ehrsam, co-founder of Coinbase with $3.5 billion of estimated worth; and Jed McCaleb, another co-founder of Ripple with an estimated worth of $3 billion.

Along with these six, Chris Larsen has already appeared in the richest individuals’ list by Forbes in 2020 with an estimated worth of $2.7 billion. This year, he has more than doubled his worth, estimated at $6 billion.

Crypto industry may bring more billionaires

This growth is mostly an output of unparalleled mainstream interest in the industry, headed by institutional investors. As the number of crypto-billionaires is increasing as digital currencies, this might attract more people to try their hands in the technology. Since September 2020, when the last years’ Forbes 400 list was released, the Bitcoin price has risen from $10.128 to $64,000. The largest altcoin, Ether, increased by about 1,000 percent. The market has performed so beautifully, with the total market value hitting a record peak of $2.4 trillion in May.

With the increased demand, the world could see the crypto industry giving many more billionaires to the world in the coming years.