How Many Billions Of Dollars Did Bitcoin 'Whales' Lose When The Cryptocurrency Market Plunged

According to Forbes estimates, dozens of billionaires who built their fortunes in the crypto world lost $15.5 billion.

Sam Bankman-Fried

The biggest loser (in USD) was Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of crypto trading firm Alameda Research. As one of the youngest self-made billionaires on Forbes' billionaires list, Bankman-Fried's net worth skyrocketed after launching FTX, a crypto derivatives exchange, in 2019.

Most of Bankman-Fried's wealth comes from the FTX he holds. At one point, Bankman-Fried's assets were as high as $16.7 billion at the time of Bitcoin's peak on May 10. However, the value of FTX has dropped by 37%, causing the block to have now dropped remaining 11.5 billion USD on May 19.

Winklevoss Twins

Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, twin brothers who famously feuded with Mark Zuckerberg over the founding of Facebook, have seen their net worth drop by $900 million each over the past nine days, down 24% down to about $2.9 billion per person.

As early as 2012, the twins used the $65 million settlement from the dispute with Facebook to invest in Bitcoin, before launching the Gemini cryptocurrency exchange in 2014. Gemini exchange is currently processing transaction volume of 200 million USD per day.

Michael Saylor

The person with the largest proportion of influencer assets is Michael Saylor – CEO of MicroStrategy. The former dot-com billionaire is now a Bitcoin investor. In October 2020, Michael Saylor bought 17,732 Bitcoins for $175 million. Throughout 2020, he also directed his business analytics software company MicroStrategy to invest in Bitcoin; This business bought 70,784 Bitcoins for $1.1 billion. At the height of Bitcoin, Saylor's fortune was $3.3 billion, but has dropped 45%, to $1.8 billion in just 9 days.

The plunge of the crypto market in the red has also taken away Vitalik Buterin's billionaire status, which lasted only a few weeks, co-founder of the Ethereum blockchain platform. Accordingly, Vitalik Buterin became a billionaire on May 3 when Ether hit nearly $3,300 each. Vitalik Buterin's total assets were even estimated at around $1.4 billion when Ether's value surged past $4,300 on May 12.

But with the recent crash of the electronic market, Forbes estimates Vitalik Buterin's current net worth at around $850 million.

Brian Armstrong is the current CEO of Coinbase, one of the largest and most popular Bitcoin exchanges in the world. With the majority of his fortune in Coinbase shares, Brian Armstrong quickly became a billionaire when the exchange successfully IPOed and was valued at $85 billion on Nasdaq on April 14. As of May 10, Brian Armstrong's total net worth was about $9.8 billion. However, after the Bitcoin crash on May 19, Brian Armstrong's total wealth dropped 15% to $8.3 billion.

Like Brian Armstrong, the majority of the main asset of Fred Ehrsam – the co-founder of Coinbase – is the stock of this exchange. Fred Ehrsam quickly became a billionaire by the time Coinbase was successfully listed. As of May 10, Fred Ehrsam's total assets were worth about $3.4 billion. However, on May 19, Fred Ehrsam's total assets dropped to $ 2.9 billion, with a decrease of up to 27%.

Chris Larsen is the co-founder of Ripple (XRP) – the 6th largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. As the owner of the largest number of Ripple coins, Chris Larsen is considered by Forbes as one of the richest crypto billionaires in the world. As of May 10, 2021, the net worth of the "father" of XRP is about $6.9 billion. However, by May 19, 2021, Chris Larsen's fortune had decreased by 19%, to only $ 5.6 billion.

Jed McCaleb

Along with Chris Larsen, Jed McCaleb is also the co-founder of Ripple. The former programmer himself also owns a large amount of XRP coins. As of May 10, Jed McCaleb's net worth is around $6 billion. However, the asset lost about $1.6 billion on May 19, down to $4.4 billion, as the value of XRP plummeted.

Barry Silbert

Barry Silbert is one of the five founding members of the Digital Currency Group. Among Digital Currency Group's subsidiaries, Grayscale is the largest company in terms of scale, specializing in the management and supervision of digital assets including Bitcoin, Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies with a total value of up to 28 billion USD.

Barry Silbert's fortune comes mainly from his shares in Grayscale. On May 19, Barry Silbert's fortune was only $1.8 billion, down about 14% from the previous time.

Changpeng Zhao

Changpeng Zhao (or "CZ") is one of the well-known figures in the blockchain and crypto community. Currently, CZ is the CEO of Binance, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world. In 2014, he sold his house to invest in Bitcoin. In 2017, he founded Binance and made this cryptocurrency exchange popular in just one year.

According to Forbes, Changpeng Zhao currently holds a net worth of about $1.9 billion, mainly coming from Binance. Quite interestingly, unlike the above billionaires, Changpeng Zhao's assets have almost no loss between the two milestones of May 10 and May 19.