It was only a mater of time, since bitcoin first appeared in 2009, initially was purposed to work as currency for virtual application such as games, apps, etc. Althought it never made it to the games, it surely was used as a currency to trade goods. It was a shock for a lot of people when bitcoin hit it's peak price of 20k. A lot of people took the opportunity to understand the technology while others just rejected the idea of a virtual currency as a viable replacement of the fiat currency that's currently in use. In the journey it has created a few billionaries in various ways such as exchange founders, miners, investors and CEOs.
The list comprises a wide display of players within the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Althought the space is characterized by being opauqe and secretive due to the fact that there are no public filing, no SEC disclosures, etc. It is also worth mentioning that the rankings are indicative of relatively nascent nature of the industry and based on market valuation and trading volumes
The Wealthiest People in Cryptocurrencies
- Chris Larsen, Co-founder of Ripple: $7.5 to $8 billion
- Joseph Lubin, Co-founder of Ethereum: $1 billion to $1.5 billion
- Changpeng Zhao, CEO of Binance: $1.1 billion to $2 billion
- Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, Co-founders of Gemini: $900 million to $1.1 billion
- Matthew Mellon, Individual investor: $900 million to $1 billion
- Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase: $900 million to $1 billion
- Matthew Roszak, Co-founder of Bloq: $900 million to $1 billion
- Anthony Di Iorio, Co-founder of Ethereum: $750 million to $1 billion
- Brock Pierce, Chairman of Bitcoin Foundation: $700 million to $1 billion
- Michael Novogratz, CEO of Galaxy Digital: $700 million to $1 billion
- Brendan Blumer, CEO of Block.one: $600 million to $700 million
- Dan Larimer, CTO in Block.one: $600 million to $700 million
- Valery Vavilov, CEO of Bitfury: $500 million to $700 million
- Charles Hoskinson, Co-founder of Ethereum and IOHK (Cardano): $500 million to $600 million
- Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple: $400 million to $500 million
- Barry Silbert, CEO of Digital Currency Group: $400 million to $500 million
- Vitalik Buterin, Creator of Ethereum: $400 million to $500 million
I think that this inspires a wave of opportunitist and investors looking for a good investment in 2020 due to the current politcal situations such as the trade war between China and US, the new coronavirus, and the prices of the stock market. We are still not sure if people are using bitcoin as a mean of holding value like the gold, or using it as a currency. In either case it's important to note that the investment should be made on the tecnology of blockchain and not so much in particular cryptocurrencies.