Forbes: Crypto billionaires lost over 75% of their capital in 2022

The richest crypto-millionaires lost more than 75% of their capital in the past 2022. About it informed American magazine Forbes.

In April last year, according to Forbes, there were 19 cryptocurrency billionaires in the world with total assets of $140 billion, but as of March 10, 2023, only 9 of them were on the list of crypto billionaires – over the year, the total capital of all crypto entrepreneurs decreased by $110 billion reaching the $30 billion mark.

According to the updated information of the magazine, now the first place in the list of the richest cryptocurrencies in the industry is also occupied by the head of the Binance crypto exchange, Changpeng Zhao, with a fortune of $10.5 billion (in 2022, his fortune was estimated at $65 billion). In second place was the creator of the MtGox crypto exchange and the co-founder of the Ripple and Stellar blockchains, Jed McCaleb, with assets of $2.4 billion, instead of $2.5 billion last year.

In third and fourth place were crypto billionaires with a fortune of $2.2 billion each – Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong ($6.6 billion in 2022) and Ripple Chairman Chris Larsen ($4.3 billion in 2022).

The magazine links the fall in the fortunes of entrepreneurs in the cryptosphere with the fall in asset values, bankruptcies and lawsuits, in particular, with the arrest of the founder of the FTX crypto exchange, Sam Bankman-Freed. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged Bankman-Fried with organizing a scheme to deceive investors after the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange.

Last year, Bankman-Freed was number two in the Forbes ranking, and his fortune was estimated at $ 24 billion, but after his arrest, FTX filed for bankruptcy, and Bankman-Freed himself faces a life sentence.

The fall of FTX began after an article by Coindesk, which stated that most of the assets ($14.6 billion) of Alameda are FTT tokens – coins issued by its subsidiary. After that, investors began withdrawing money from the exchange and selling its FTT tokens. Reuters later wrote that about $1 billion of funds belonging to clients disappeared from FTX.

March 28 to Bankman-Fried presented the new charge is that he paid a $40 million bribe to one or more Chinese officials to unfreeze his hedge fund accounts. Then the investigation accused him of violating the provisions of the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.