Forbes estimates that the net worth of the top 17 crypto billionaires has dropped by $116 billion this year.
2022 has been a devastating year for many in the crypto industry. According to the latest Forbes data, the crisis has hit even the richest in the industry hard. Thus, the size of the state of the leading 17 crypto billionaires decreased by $116 billion. At the same time, 10 people were forced to completely leave this top 17.
The reasons for this dynamics are obvious: the protracted crypto winter and the resonant collapses of several large crypto companies this year. Perhaps the loudest departure from the list of crypto billionaires was, perhaps, the story of the founder of the bankrupt FTX exchange, Sam Bankman-Fried.
As of the beginning of the year, net worth was approximately $24 billion. At the same time, the FTX exchange at that time successfully completed a round of raising funds in the amount of $400 million, which brought the company’s total value to $32 billion.
FTX went bankrupt and SBF’s fortune was reset to zero. As he admitted, he had less than $100,000 left in his account, and he did not even know how he would pay his lawyers.
He is not the only one of the “zeroed” crypto billionaires. The same fate befell the technical director (CTO) of FTX Gary Wang, who was written about in the spring as one of the youngest billionaires in the world (under 30 years old).
Barry Silbert, the owner of Digital Currency Group (DCG), a venture capital firm behind investment fund Grayscale and troubled crypto broker Genesis, also lost his fortune. As noted in Forbes, the threat of a potential bankruptcy of DCG negatively affected the financial situation of Zilbert. Media estimates put DCG at about $2 billion in debt, with the company failing to raise new capital to stay afloat.
As a result, Forbes summarizes, Zilbert’s 40% stake in DCG is now worth almost nothing, unless his crypto empire manages to survive in the current situation.
At first it was believed that the collapse of FTX played into the hands of the Binance crypto exchange, ridding it of its main competitor. However, in the end, the position of the founder and CEO of Binance, Changpeng Zhao, also shook. According to Forbes, earlier this year, he was “worth” $65 billion. Now, his fortune has dipped to just $4.5 billion. However, even with this amount, he still stayed on the first line in the ranking of crypto billionaires.
The reason for this negative trend was a combination of factors reflecting concern about the prospects for Binance, as well as increased attention to its potential problems from regulators and clients.
The Forbes rating also reflected a tangible deterioration in the financial situation of the Winklevoss twins and the founders of Coinbase.
The list of crypto billionaires was left by Nikhil Viswanathan and Joe Lau from Alchemy, Devin Finzer and Alex Atalla from OpenSea, as well as Michael Saylor and Tim Draper, who actively invested in BTC. They all moved into the millionaire category.
Jed McCaleb, co-founder of Ripple, has demonstrated amazing resilience. During this year, the value of his assets has not changed much, having decreased by 100 million from $2.5 billion to $2.4 billion. This is due to the fact that he sold most of his crypto assets.
