Forbes recently released a list of the world’s richest individuals in terms of cryptocurrency. There are currently 19 people in the world who own an equivalent of more than $350 million in crypto assets. The top owners of cryptocurrency in the world amassed their wealth in a variety of ways, but most are founders of large cryptocurrency projects and cryptocurrency exchange platforms. Others are either individual investors or part of investment groups and some have established very profitable cryptocurrency mining operations. The one thing that the richest in crypto have in common is that they are all the types to “HODL” (hold on for dear life), meaning that they hold on to their cryptocurrency through any downturns in the market and aren’t quick to make crypto-to-crypto or crypto-to-fiat trades.

The Richest Person

Chris Larson, CEO and Founder of Ripple (XRP), is the undisputed #1 largest crypto owner in the world. No one else on the list even comes close to Larson’s net worth. He personally owns 5.2 billion XRP. The amazing thing is that in early 2018 Ripple is only valued around $0.80 to $1.00 on average. If XRP rises to the price level of BTC, or even to the level of ETH, Larson will very easily become the world’s richest person and have the potential to be the world’s first trillionaire.

Demographics

Another notable thing to mention about this list is that not everyone made their fortunes early on. While some did invest in the early days of BTC (circa 2009 to 2012), lots of people won big by either working on the team at Ethereum or investing in ETH. This is significant because ETH’s Initial Coin Offering (ICO) didn’t take place until July 30, 2015.

The world’s largest owners of crypto are also very young. The average age of the 19 richest people in crypto is only 42; in contrast, the average age of the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans is 67. It’s also interesting to note that there are only men on the crypto list, while two of the people at the top of the 2018 list of the world’s billionaires are women.

Determining the Future of Crypto Wealth

With price fluctuations and the rise of new cryptocurrencies, the rankings for the wealthiest people in crypto is likely to change a lot in the coming years. The crypto market price volatility in January and February 2018, for example, was much higher compared to blue chip stocks or commodities like gold. That means that the rankings could change drastically, even week to week.

Promising new cryptos continue to emerge every day. Some have the technology and resources behind them to overtake the current breadwinners. On top of that, new, decentralized exchanges are emerging to compete with centralized exchanges like Binance and Coinbase. These changes could catapult founders of new exchanges to the top of the crypto wealth rankings.

As the cryptocurrency market continues to develop, it will be interesting to see which people emerge to become the wealthiest crypto owners of the future and who from the current Forbes list may fall out of the rankings.