In a recent report from China’s Hurun Research Institute, the world’s richest have been highlighted and classified in their respective areas. One area that has seen a lot of growth is the Blockchain and cryptocurrency billionaires as familiar names have increased their fortunes in the latest bull run.
Topping the list in the blockchain space, of which there are 17 billionaires, is Coinbase CEO Brain Armstrong. The head of the popular cryptocurrency exchange is reported to have a networth of 11.5 billion.
The rest of the list reads like a ‘who’s who’ of cryptocurrency top dogs with a number of exchange heads, like Binance’s Changpeng Zhao, Huobi’s Leon Li, the Winklevoss Twins of Gemini and Xu Mingxing of OKEx.
There are other influential names, Like the Ripple contingent of Brad Garlinghouse, Chris Larsen and Jed Caleb, as well as new institutional fan, Michael Saylor of MicroStrategy.
Of course, all of these men made their money either directly through blockchain and crypto, or as the case is with Saylor and even Tim Draper, because of their association and investment in it.
This leads one to ask the question if the list should be extended to include the world’s richest man, Elon Musk.
Crypto Musk
Recently, the head of Tesla, Elon Musk, ranked as the world’s richest man on the Hurun research report with a net worth of 197 billion, has been very active in the cryptocurrency space. It of course began with a few social media posts around meme coin Doge, but Musk has waded in deeper.
Recently, Tesla announced it would be buying up $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin as an investment. This investment has already netted the electric car company major returns as the price of the volatile asset continues to climb.
Musk, some could argue, has followed a similar route to Saylor in his own move through the cryptocurrency space and thus could be counted as a blockchain billionaire as well.
However, the bulk of his wealth is from his 21% share of Tesla, which is worth just under $800 billion. SpaceX, in which Musk has a 52% share, added $13 billion in value in the past year, after becoming the first private company to put people into orbit, an achievement previously claimed by just three global superpowers
However, it is still early days for Musk in the cryptocurrency space, and while he is new to it with regards to investing, he is certainly an avid fan which could make his move deeper into the ecosystem that much easier.
