A look at the crypto wealth of some crypto giants from Vitalik Buterin to Satoshi Nakamoto

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin

Buterin was named the world’s youngest crypto billionaire by Forbes in 2021 — when ETH first broke $3,000. On-chain data cannot verify the title of “youngest crypto billionaire,” but it does seem to confirm the numbers.

According to Arkham Intelligence, Buterin’s known crypto portfolio is worth about $2 billion in May 2021. Understandably, ETH accounts for about half of these assets. But amid the Dogecoin craze, Buterin is worth much more than that.

Fans and issuers of Plucky dog ​​coins have historically flooded Buterin’s Ethereum address with large amounts of illiquid tokens. This is a form of guerrilla marketing — designed to trick chain watchers into believing Buterin is deep in their useless meme coin.

Vitalik Buterin was the main target of Dogecoin marketers during the last bull run

As a result, as of May 12, 2021, Buterin’s crypto portfolio is worth over $20.5 billion — which would put him on par with the likes of Bridgewater Associates’ Ray Dalio and Google’s Eric Schmidt.

SHIB ) accounted for 87% of these funds ($17.8 billion), but there were countless other dogecoins, including AKITA and HUSKY. The subsequent (arguably inevitable) collapse of SHIB greatly reduced their value, and Buterin donated everything that was left to the Indian Covid relief fund.

Buterin now holds approximately $484 million in cryptocurrency in his known addresses — almost all of it ETH. Arkham Intelligence notes that Buterin has sent $74 million in on-chain assets to crypto exchanges including Coinbase and Kraken over the years.

Ripple co-founder Jed McCaleb

McCaleb’s billions in cryptocurrency were thrown away over the course of nearly a full decade.

Until last year, Ripple Labs had been sending a steady stream of XRP to McCaleb’s “tacostand” address, which he subsequently sold on the open market.

Ripple and McCaleb settled for a total of 9 billion XRP ($54 million at the time of the settlement, $4.2 billion today). Ripple was initially concerned that McCaleb would try to quickly give up his founder's reward, so the settlement had strict rules on how much XRP McCaleb received each year, from $10,000 per week in 2015 to 2 billion XRP per year after 2020 ($844 million).

Jed McCaleb’s XRP sales peaked in 2021 (Source: Whale Alert)

McCaleb’s “tacostand” now holds zero XRP, having received its last payment in mid-2022.

Chain watcher Whale Alert estimates that McCaleb sold 5.7 billion XRP over eight years, making $3.1 billion. The firm found that McCaleb sold XRP at an average price of $0.55 per token, about 19% higher than the current price.

McCaleb, whose net worth Forbes estimates today is $2.4 billion, subsequently founded rival blockchain network Stellar.

Justin Sun, founder of TRON

He held $6.3 billion in cryptocurrencies at his portfolio's peak in September 2021.

That figure would put Sun among the world's 500 richest billionaires, on par with Lululemon founder Chip Wilson and Viking Global's Andreas Halvorsen.

The fact that Sun's investment portfolio is at an all-time high is proof of this.

Around 95% of his portfolio is locked in Aave and Curve lending protocols, reaping gains as markets closed at all-time highs — including $2.63 billion, 478,250 WETH ($1.86 billion), and 11,000 BTC ($545 million).

Justin Sun pledges his ETH to Lido

Today, Sun's known crypto portfolio is worth $858 million.

303,660 Lido staked ETH (STETH) accounted for $580 million, followed by $160 million in Sun’s stablecoin USDD.

He also holds 23,724 ETH ($46.76 million) and 6,802 MKR ($4.97 million)

Sun is indeed a prolific trader. Data shows that he has sent $22.6 billion in cryptocurrencies to exchanges over the years, with more than half of that going to Binance.

Satoshi Nakamoto and Other Anonymous

Bitcoin's mysterious creator is believed to have mined between 600,000 bitcoins ($16.75 billion) and 1.1 million bitcoins ($30.7 billion) in its early days.

All of these bitcoins are spread across hundreds of addresses, making it somewhat difficult to directly trace these funds.

If the higher estimate is true, Nakamoto would rank among the top 50 billionaires in the world, just behind Alain Wertheimer, chairman of Chanel.

The “1Feex” address is another notable on-chain billionaire. The address has held nearly 80,000 BTC ($2.25 billion) since March 2011 and was once controlled by Ross Ulbricht’s Silk Road market.

That didn’t stop self-proclaimed Bitcoin creator Craig Wright from claiming ownership of the funds in a court case last year (unsuccessfully).

Fewer than a dozen Bitcoin addresses not associated with cryptocurrency exchanges or other entities contain $1 billion or more. Curiously, there are currently no unattributed Ethereum addresses containing $1 billion or more in ETH, according to Etherscan.

Coinbase CEO and other off-chain billionaires

Crypto billionaires who hold most of their wealth off-chain deserve special mention.

Arkham Intelligence data shows that Coinbase co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong currently holds approximately $590,000 in his known addresses, almost all of which is ETH.

Armstrong’s portfolio was worth $1.23 million at its peak in early February, and is made up almost entirely of DYDX, the native token of the eponymous decentralized exchange. Forbes puts Armstrong’s current net worth at $2.5 billion.

Dallas Mavericks owner and prolific crypto supporter Mark Cuban owns about $4 million. USDC accounts for more than half, followed by STETH and wrapped ETH.

Mark Cuban has been a vocal advocate for cryptocurrencies for years. Last August, Cuban held $7.16 million, an all-time high, but 86% of that was USDC locked in Aave. ETH, ApeCoin (APE), ENS, and Rarible (RARI) made up the rest. Forbes estimates Cuban's entire net worth at $5.1 billion.

Of course, there are many other crypto billionaires, and the featured names may well own crypto assets that are lesser-known.