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The prestigious, albeit extremely volatile list includes all the biggest names in the crypto-sphere including investors the Winklevoss twins and the heads of the popular exchanges - Coinbase
and Binance. Forbes admits that the figures are estimates and liable to change on an hourly basis given the volatile nature of the assets. However they say that each entrants’ wealth has
been verified, with some providing detailed proof to aid in the investigation. Elusive bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto did not come forward and is not included in the list. Without any firm
data on Mr Nakamoto, Ripple’s co-founder Mr Larsen comes out on top. Putting his wealth in perspective at its uppermost point when the Ripple XRP coin hit an all-time high of $3.84 earlier
this year, the net worth of Mr Larsen’s estimated 5.19 billion XRP, added to his 17 percent stake in the company meant that, for short time at least, he was one of the richest people on the
planet with wealth approximate to $59.9 billion on paper. At the time, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook fame was worth around $55 billion. Ripple is now worth $0.78 and as such Mr Larsen’s
estimated wealth has now fallen $59.9 billion to $8 billion, an indicator of cryptocurrency volatility at its most violent. There are no women in the list and the average age of those on
the list at 42, is a long way below the average age of 67 on the Forbes 400 list of wealthy Americans. Brock Pierce, chairman of the Bitcoin Foundation sees the positive side of these
literal new-money million and billionaires. He said: “This is an opportunity to be a trillionaire - someone who is positively impacting a trillion living things on this planet."
Although the personal wealth these men is falling, none of them will be particularly concerned after many of them enjoyed a 14,409 average percent rise to the coins in their wallets in 2017.
But with 2018 being dominated by regulatory threats from South Korea, electricity use concerns in China, a $500m hack in Japan, a ban on Facebook, the “outright scam” at AriseBank and the
price manipulation of tether there are major fears the bubble will burst. The list in full: Chris Larsen, co-founder, Ripple - $8 billion Joseph Lubin, co-founder, Ethereum - $5 billion
Changpeng Zhao, CEO, Binance - $2 billion Cameron & Tyler Winklevoss, investors - $1.1 billion Matthew Mellon, investor - $1 billion Brian Armstrong, CEO Coinbase - $1 billion Matthew
Roszak, co-founder, Bloq - $1 billion Anthony Di lorio, co-founder, Ethereum - $1 billion Brock Pierce, Chairman, Bitcoin Foundation - $1 billion Michael Novogratz, CEO Galaxy Digital - $1
billion Brendan Blumer, CEO, Block.one - $700 million Dan Larimer, CTO, Block.one - $700 million Valery Vavilov, CEO, Bitfury - $700 million Charles Hopkinson, co-founder, Ethereum, $600
million Brad Garlinghouse, CEO, Ripple, $500 million Barry Silbert, CEO, Digital Currency Group, $500 million Vitalik Buterin, Creator of Ethereum, $500 million Tim Draper, Founder Draper
Associates, $500 million Song Chi-Hyung, CEO Dunamu, $500 million