The crypto winter is over. Bitcoin has more than doubled over the past 12 months, hitting an all-time high of $73,000 in March after the U.S. legalized bitcoin-pegged exchange-traded funds. The total value of all outstanding cryptocurrencies increased by 170%, adding some $1.6 trillion in market value over the past 12 months, according to CoinGecko.
That’s helped make at least 17 people crypto billionaires, according to Forbes’ 2024 World’s Billionaires list, up from nine crypto billionaires last year. These 17 investors and entrepreneurs are worth a collective $93 billion, between their estimated crypto asset holdings, publicly disclosed stock holdings and private assets. That’s more than double the $37 billion in collective crypto billionaire wealth last year.
For the third year running, Changpeng Zhao, founder and former CEO of crypto exchange Binance, is crypto’s wealthiest person. Despite pleading guilty to U.S. money laundering charges in November, CZ, as he’s known, is now worth an estimated $33 billion, up from $10.5 billion last year. That makes him the biggest crypto gainer in dollar terms since last year and the 50th-wealthiest person in the world. The bulk of his fortune comes from his majority stake in Binance, which remains the industry’s largest global trading venue by volume.
The Forbes World’s Billionaires list is a snapshot of wealth using stock prices and exchange rates from March 8, 2024. Some people become richer or poorer within days of publication. We list individuals rather than multigenerational families who share fortunes, though we include wealth belonging to a billionaire’s spouse and children in certain cases, namely if that person is the founder of the fortune. For Russian billionaires, fortunes were calculated using ownership structures from February 2022, prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and before many made transfers of assets to managers, friends and others in an effort to protect their holdings from sanctions. We value a variety of assets, including private companies, real estate, art and more. We don’t pretend to know each billionaire’s private balance sheet (though some provide it). When documentation isn’t supplied or available, we discount fortunes. For daily updates of net worths, go to forbes.com/real-time-billionaires.
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