Sam Bankman-Fried has become the 32nd-richest American at the tender age of 29 — and only Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg became a self-made billionaire at a younger age.
Seven crypto billionaires have made the cut of this year’s Forbes 400 Richest Americans.
While Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk topped the list — with a net worth of $201 billion and $190.5 billion respectively — it was bad news for Donald Trump, whose projected worth of $2.5 billion caused him to fall out of the rankings for the first time in 25 years.
The richest crypto billionaire in the Forbes 400 is Sam Bankman-Fried, ranked No. 32. With a net worth of $22.5 billion, he’s a mere $500 million away from overtaking Rupert Murdoch and his family. Even more staggering is the fact that he’s a brand-new entry.
Bankman-Fried, the founder and CEO of the FTX crypto exchange, has now become one of the youngest self-made billionaires in history. Only Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg managed to accrue more wealth than him at such a tender age.
Although he has vowed to give away as much of his wealth as possible, Forbes pointed out that his $25 million in lifetime donations currently amounts to 0.1% of his fortune — or as the magazine characterizes it, “mathematically equivalent to a typical 29-year-old American stuffing $15 into a Salvation Army bucket.”
But it seems Bankman-Fried is determined to ride the crypto wave and increase his wealth further before fully focusing on philanthropy, saying “there’s a lot of work to be done” and that his goals are long-term.
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Who Else Makes the Cut?
You have to scroll a little bit further down the rankings in order to discover the other crypto billionaires in the Forbes 400.
Also new to the list at No. 60 is Brian Armstrong, the CEO of Coinbase, with a net worth of $11.5 billion — putting him on a par with the financial services mogul Charles Schwab. He was helped along by the exchange’s blockbuster IPO back in April, not least because reports suggest that he owns 19% of the company.
Chris Larsen is the only crypto billionaire who has appeared in the list before, and he’s ranked No. 172 with a net worth of $6 billion. Ripple’s co-founder and chairman has seen his wealth double over the past 12 months as XRP soared, despite the ongoing lawsuit brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Next, in No. 261 are Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss — both sitting on a net worth of $4.3 billion at 40 years old. The twins, who famously lost ownership of Facebook in a bitter dispute with Mark Zuckerberg, instead opted to make their billions in Bitcoin.
The final two newcomers in the list are Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam, with a net worth of $3.5 billion, and Ripple co-founder Jed McCaleb on $3 billion.
