Have you ever asked, “Has Anyone Got Rich From Bitcoin?”
If so, you’re not alone.
I’ve done some research on the subject and laid out my results for you below.
So most people know about bitcoin’s incredible rise in price since its inception. However probably none more than the people in this article. They are some of the fortunate ones. Since they were lucky enough to get in on bitcoin in time to strike it rich. Although, it wasn’t all luck, because they had to have the foresight to see what was coming with cryptos. They also had to take a big monetary risk. Not to mention having the fortitude to stick with bitcoin through all the ups and downs that came with it and not sell the first time, second time… etc., that bitcoin hit new highs or took a nosedive.
To start with, Satoshi Nakamoto, “the father of bitcoin” would be considered the richest bitcoin owner.
That is if anyone knew who he, she, or they were.
It is said that Nakamoto has approximately 1 million bitcoins.
Which at the time of this writing, one bitcoin is worth $42,687.50.
Now if we multiply $42,687.59 by 1 million bitcoins, we get $42,687,500,000.
So that would be one hell of a net worth, no matter who it is, and make them the richest bitcoin owner along with it.
With a Net Worth of $8.7 billion, that makes Sam Bankman-Fried the wealthiest bitcoin billionaire according to forbes.com.
That is unless the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto really does have 1 million bitcoins.
If So, then that would make Bankman-Fried the second-richest bitcoin billionaire.
Sam Bankman-Fried is a 29-year-old MIT graduate.
He also founded the trading firm Alameda Research along with the derivatives exchange FTX and made a pretty big splash in 2020 when he donated $5 million to a super PAC that supported Joe Biden for President.
Updated, 11-16-2022: It’s not conclusive yet, but It was alleged that SBF (Sam Bankman-Fried) was doing something that could be considered similar to a Ponzi scheme. So, it's possible that he shouldn’t be counted, but we’ll leave him here for the sake of posterity!
Anyone who has anything to do with bitcoin or any other cryptocurrencies should be familiar with the crypto exchange “Coinbase”.
Well at least anyone who lives in the U.S. and is involved with any form of crypto would probably know about it.
Coinbase, which is headquartered in San Francisco, California is the largest cryptocurrency trading platform in the United States when measured by trading volume.
Coinbase had its IPO on the Nasdaq on April 14, 2021, and during a short interval, it reached a market cap of $100 billion.
Now back to Brian Armstrong, he is the CEO and co-founder of Coinbase.
Armstrong also owns about 19% of the exchange.
Brian Armstrong is worth $6.5 billion.
In 2012 Chris Larsen co-founded Ripple.
Ripple’s purpose was to use blockchain in order to facilitate international payments for banks.
A couple of Ripple's many customers include PNC and American Express.
Larson also owns 17% of ripple Labs and over 3 billion XRP tokens.
Chris Larson is worth about $3.4 billion.
Now we come to number 5 on my list of bitcoin multi-millionaires and billionaires.
Really, they are number 5 and number 6.
Because there are two of them, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss.
Cameron and Tyler went to Harvard University where they were members of the men's varsity crew (the rowing team).
Most people have heard of the Winklevoss twins, as they are probably some of the most famous bitcoin billionaires.
They're known for either being crypto billionaires or from claiming to have had the original idea for Facebook, which they sued Mark Zuckerberg over by the way.
The brothers were actually awarded $65 million in that case.
There was even an Oscar-winning movie that had to do with it “The Social Network”.
Since leaving Harvard the brothers have been purchasing bitcoin along with being involved in multiple crypto-related ventures.
One of those businesses is their cryptocurrency exchange Gemini.
After all their crypto-related dealings, it is reported that the Winklevoss twins are worth $3 billion each.
Michael Saylor went to MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), where he studied aeronautics and astronautics, and science, technology, and society.
In 1989 he co-founded MicroStrategy with his MIT roommate Sanju Bansal.
MicroStrategy is a company that provides business intelligence, cloud-based services, and mobile software.
Since Saylor is 20% owner and the CEO, MicroStrategy has invested in 71,079 bitcoins.
Saylor also owns over 15,000 bitcoins himself.
A lot of people refer to him as a bitcoin bull.
Michael Saylor has a net worth of $2.3 billion.
Jed McCaleb was an early adopter of bitcoin.
He started a bitcoin exchange in 2010 “Mt. Gox”, although he turned around and sold it in 2011.
McCaleb also co-founded Ripple in 2012, although he didn’t stay there very long either.
It is said that he owns over 3 billion XRP tokens, which came from being a co-founder of Ripple.
Jed McCaleb’s net worth total’s $2 billion.
Fred Ehrsam attended Duke University and worked as a foreign exchange trader at Goldman Sachs.
After that in 2012, Ehrsam co-founded the crypto exchange “Coinbase” with Brian Armstrong.
He has since left the company but is still a member of the board.
Ehrsam also still owns approximately 6% of Coinbase.
Nowadays Ehrsam is the managing partner of the cryptocurrency investment firm Paradigm, which he co-founded as well.
Fred Ehrsam has a net worth of $1.9 billion.
Changpeng Zhao founded Fusion Systems in 2005.
Fusion Systems provided super-fast high-frequency trading systems for brokers.
He also started working as chief technology officer of OKCoin in 2013.
However, his real claim to fame happened after he started the cryptocurrency exchange Binance in 2017.
Within a year he had turned Binance into the world’s largest crypto exchange when measured by trading volume.
It is estimated that Zhao owns 30% of the company.
Changpeng Zhao has a net worth of $1.9 billion.
Before getting involved with bitcoin, Barry Silbert graduated from Emory University with honors and worked as an investment banker.
In 2015 Silbert founded DCG (Digital Currency Group) a conglomerate of five cryptocurrency-focused companies.
DCG’s holdings include Grayscale, a cryptocurrency asset management firm with about $44 billion worth of crypto-related assets.
CoinDesk, a crypto news site is another of DCG’s assets along with over 100 other companies around the world.
Barry Silbert is worth $1.6 billion.
Most people consider Tim Draper to be pretty smart since he was able to get degrees from both Harvard and Stanford.
Now in 1985, he started his venture capital firm.
He was also one of the early investors in the email service Hotmail, which was later sold to Microsoft.
Although, Draper really hit it big when he bought 29,656 bitcoins in 2014 that were confiscated from shuttered Silk Road black market by the U.S. Marshals.
Draper paid approximately $630 a coin which cost him a total of $18.7 million.
However, like I was telling you earlier the price of bitcoin today is $42,687.50.
So that means if you subtract what he paid ($18.7 million) for the bitcoin back then, from what the bitcoin is worth today ($42,687.50) he made $1,247,240,500, that is if he didn't sell any of them.
Boy, I wish we could have got in on that deal, could you imagine!
Well, I hate to say it but I guess we have to come back to reality, so in continuation, Tim Draper’s net worth is $1.5 billion.
Matthew Roszak went to Lake Forest College where he received a Bachelor of Arts/Economics degree.
After that Roszak worked in venture capital and as an entrepreneur before getting into cryptocurrencies.
He also had insider trading charges leveled against him that he settled in 2006.
In 2013 Roszak founded Tally Capital a private investment firm focused on blockchain-enabled technology.
Later in 2015, he co-founded a blockchain technology company named Bloq, which he is also chairman of.
Matthew Roszak has a net worth of $1.5 billion.
Roger Ver went to De Anza College although he didn’t finish.
He dropped out after one year so he could pursue his business interests.
Ver also had to serve 10 months in federal prison after selling explosive firecrackers, marketed as Pest Control Report 2000 on eBay.
The U.S. Department of Justice described it as "dealing in explosives without a license".
As far as cryptocurrencies are concerned, Ver was one of the early investors and advocates for bitcoin.
According to Investopedia, “Ver earned the moniker "Bitcoin Jesus" because he acted as an evangelist on behalf of the cryptocurrency”.
He started out acquiring bitcoin in early 2011.
Back then you could buy a whole bitcoin for less than $1.
Since then Ver has invested more than a million dollars in bitcoin-related startups like “Ripple”.
Roger Ver is worth between $430 to $520 million.
Yes, there have been quite a few people who got rich from bitcoin. That is if we’re talking about being rich in terms of monetary value. First, there have been people who got rich by purchasing bitcoin itself. On the other hand, there are people who got rich investing in blockchain technology. Then there are also people who got rich investing in bitcoin startups. Next, you have the people who have made their fortune from making a combination of bitcoin-related investments. One last thing, this is not an exhaustive list of everyone who got rich from bitcoin. There are a lot of other people who have made anywhere from hundreds of thousands of dollars to billions of dollars and lots of amounts in between.
