Malcolm Forbes came up with an idea to compile and rank the richest Americans and in 1981, published their first list. Now, in 2019, Forbes continues to employ resources to sift through the information to discover new billionaires for the Forbes 400 List, and who made it this year from the cryptosphere? Surprisingly, this year’s latest addition to Forbes 400 List is former Ripple CEO, Chris Larsen, who happens to be the only representative of the rapidly growing cryptocurrency industry – though he certainly is not the ONLY crypto billionaire in the world. Larsen has a net worth of $2.1 Billion and sits at the 388th position on the list, dropping five positions since last year despite the fact that his fortune hasn’t changed since 2018.
While stories abound of regular people making fortunes in crypto, the world’s richest crypto and bitcoin-billionaires are primarily the people making the pans and shovels in the digital gold rush. During the past few years, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have experienced a meteoric rise from obscurity to mania. The innovative potential of decentralized systems is creating value and disruption in myriad ways across a wide range of industries. Excitement and passion continues to drive pioneers and entrepreneurs to create new ways of doing things and highly efficient blockchains that solve past challenges.
Though Bitcoin rallied in the second quarter this year, XRP barely moved and the news that Ripple Labs might artificially surpass the price growth of XRP with continuous sales is doing the rounds. However, it has turned out that the team behind Ripple has vested interests in the success of the company’s native token.
The company has been focused on Ripple’s long term growth over immediate profits. As one of the co-founders of the Ripple protocol, he was awarded 5.19 Million XRP tokens for his contributions and at the peak of the crypto craze, Larsen’s net worth reached a whopping $37.3 Billion. Despite the significant drop in his net worth, thanks in large part because of the dropping XRP price, Larsen was tapped to be the only cryptocurrency billionaire in The Forbes 400 List.
And speaking of wealthiest people on Earth, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos remains at the top of the list despite a $38 Billion divorce settlement that allowed his former wife, Mackenzie Bezos to claim the 15th place. That’s kind of staggering to think about. Notable tycoons and crypto frontmen who did not make the Forbes 400 List are the Winklevoss Twins, Brian Armstrong, Chanpeng Zhao, Barry Silbert, and Brad Garlinghouse who is worth close to $10 Billion. While cryptocurrencies are still in their early stages, there is no doubt that cryptocurrency has been lucrative for many and they could be challenging Bezos for that much-coveted top spot on the Forbes List.
