The loss represents 17 persons regarding their combined personal equity, including 15 who have seen their fortunes plummet since March.
What led to these losses?
According to recent estimates by Forbes (1), the bear market and the wave of bankruptcy filings in the cryptocurrency business have drained founders’ and investors’ bank accounts of $116 billion over the last nine months. Seventeen persons in the area collectively lost their equity in the loss, with more than 15 losing more than half of their wealth since March. Ten names were thus eliminated from the list of cryptocurrency millionaires.
Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, the CEO of Binance, was blamed for one of the significant losses. He sold his 70% share in the cryptocurrency exchange in March. They were valued at $65 billion, but now just $4.5 billion. Brian Armstrong, the CEO of Coinbase, is considered worth $1.5 billion, down from $6 billion in March. Chris Larsen, a co-founder of Ripple, had a decrease in wealth from $4.3 billion to $2.1 billion. In comparison, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss of Gemini saw a decrease in wealth from $4 billion to $1.1 billion apiece.
The Billionaires affected
Sam Bankman-Fried and Gary Wang, co-founders of FTX, who had fortunes valued at $24 billion and $5.9 billion, respectively, in March and at $0 in December, are among those who lost their billionaire title. The spreading tsunami brought on by the Bitcoin bubble also cost Barry Silbert, the founder, and CEO of the Digital Currency Group, his $3.2 billion fortune.FTX’s downfall, as reported by Forbes.
Nickel Viswanathan and Joseph Lay from the cryptocurrency software company Alchemy, Devin Finzer and Alex Atallah from OpenSea, Fred Ehrsam from Coinbase, Michael Saylor, the creator of MicroStrategy, and Tim Draper, a venture capitalist, are also among the former billionaires. The FTX issue has undermined investor confidence and caused a liquidity crisis across the sector, making it unlikely that the cryptocurrency bear market will soon come to an end. As a result, it is anticipated that the market will continue to shrink through 2023. (2)
