According to a Forbes report, the top crypto investors and founders lost about $116 billion in total assets from March to December this year.
The entire industry suffered significant losses this year with the collapse of Terra’s stablecoin LUNA, followed by bankrupt hedge fund Three Arrow Capital, brokerage firm Voyager Digital, crypto lenders Celsius and BlockFi, and finally, the recently bankrupt crypto exchange FTX.
As a result, Forbes estimates, the 17 wealthiest individuals in the industry have suffered major losses, with 15 of them losing more than half of their personal wealth in 2022.
Sam Bankman-Fried, formerly the second richest person in the crypto industry, lost his entire fortune – $24 billion, in the collapse of FTX. A member of his inner circle, Gary Wang, co-founder of the crypto exchange, also lost his $5.9 billion.
Changpeng Zhao, the head of Binance, lost more than anyone this year, from $65 billion to $4.5 billion in personal wealth. As his source of wealth is Binance, those losses, combined with the entire industry events, are no wonder.
Read more: Binance addresses all recent FUD in a blog post
While Binance is strong amidst FUD, concerns and suits only add up. Yet, Binance spokesman said that Forbes’ estimate of CZ’s net worth is “not an important metric for CZ. What’s more important is creating meaningful use cases for crypto.”
French investors sue Binance.France: Crypto Digest From TradeCrypto.com #198
Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, is no exception, with his wealth shrinking almost six times this year. Coinbase shares are performing poorly this year, and the company survived several waves of job cuts.
Coinbase stocks hit a new low: Crypto Digest From TradeCrypto.com #195
Another Coinbase co-founder, Fred Ehrsam, suffered from the FTX collapse with his firm Paradigm investing $278 million in FTX equity.
More trouble for Coinbase: Coinbase Suffers $1 Billion Net Loss in Q2
Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, the founders of Gemini, and Barry Silbert, the head of DCG, are in the same boat with the Gemini-Genesis saga.
What happened to Gemini: Gemini is struggling to unlock its Earn program
Right after the FTX collapse, Genesis paused withdrawals due to the material exposure, and Gemini halted its Earn program due to Genesis being its lender. DSG is a parent company of both Gemini and Genesis.
Related: Genesis creditors seek to avoid bankruptcy
Some of the top crypto founders even lost their billionaire statuses. OpenSea’s Devin Finzer and Alex Attalah suffered an NFT market demise.
Related: Half of 2022 NFT volume is wash trades
Shares of NFT marketplace OpenSea have been trading at a 75% discount since January. Daily trading volume on OpenSea’s NFT marketplace this month is around $6 million, down from the medium of more than $150 million in January, according to DappRadar.
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