Who Are the World's Top 5 Bitcoin Millionaires? Bitcoin has created a diverse set of millionaires who have created products and services to grow the cryptocurrency's ecosystem. 5 of the World's Top Bitcoin Millionaires. Sean Ross is a strategic adviser at 1031x.com, Investopedia contributor, and the founder and manager of Free Lances Ltd. Amilcar Chavarria is a FinTech and Blockchain entrepreneur with over a decade of experience launching companies. He has taught crypto, blockchain, and FinTech at Cornell since 2019 and at MIT and Wharton since 2021. He advises governments, financial institutions, regulators, and startups. He's also held management roles at Goldman Sachs and BlackRock. Kirsten Rohrs Schmitt is an accomplished professional editor, writer, proofreader, and fact-checker. She has expertise in finance, investing, real estate, and world history. Throughout her career, she has written and edited content for numerous consumer magazines and websites, crafted resumes and social media content for business owners, and created collateral for academia and nonprofits. Kirsten is also the founder and director of Your Best Edit, find her on LinkedIn and Facebook. Bitcoin is a digital asset and payment system with a market capitalization of around $747.34 billion as of April 12, 2022. It is considered by many to be one of the most successful digital currencies ever created. The first-ever bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) was launched in October 2021, pushing the cryptocurrency to new all-time highs. Bitcoin's stratospheric rise since 2009 has created a surprising and diverse set of millionaires. These millionaires have made money by creating products to grow Bitcoin's still-nascent ecosystem. For example, some have created exchanges for trading the cryptocurrency and its derivatives. Others have used it to create financial products and tokens that have minted millions. Their products and services have benefited from a surge in popularity and price for Bitcoin. Of course, Bitcoin was—and still is—a risky asset class. The absence of regulatory guardrails and the cryptocurrency's price volatility have attracted criminals and investors alike. But those drawbacks only serve to highlight the achievements of Bitcoin millionaires because they not only were early adopters but also predicted its economic opportunity. Key Takeaways. Launched in 2009, Bitcoin is the first and remains the most successful blockchain-based cryptocurrency in the world. The price of Bitcoin is volatile, ranging from under $10 in 2010 to $40,323 on April 12, 2022. Most top Bitcoin billionaires became rich by creating products and services to grow the cryptocurrency's ecosystem. This overall price increase has also created Bitcoin billionaires. These are the early adopters who recognized a lucrative opportunity, started accumulating or mining in the early days, and held on. Changpeng Zhao (CZ) Changpeng Zhao is the founder of Binance, the world's biggest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume. According to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index, Zhao's net worth was $96 billion in January 2022. The publication writes that Zhao's fortune could be significantly higher" because their estimate does not take into account his personal crypto wealth, which includes his holdings of Bitcoin and Binance Coin, the cryptocurrency used for transactions at Binance. In April 2021, Forbes estimated Zhao's net worth to be $1.6 billion. Zhao, who immigrated to Canada at the age of 13 from China, came to Bitcoin via a poker game with friends. He went all-in on cryptocurrencies thereafter and even sold his apartment for Bitcoin in 2014. Binance, which was started in 2017, handles transactions that run into billions of dollars on a daily basis. While it may not be as well-known as Coinbase to U.S. customers, Binance is bigger and offers more coins and derivatives to customers than its competitor. Bloomberg reports that it generated $20 billion in revenues in 2021. The exchange's nimble ascent has taken a toll on its regulatory standing. It is under regulatory scrutiny in major financial jurisdictions and has been forced to operate without a headquarters. Zhao told Bloomberg that he welcomes crypto regulation. As far as wealth is concerned, he remains unfazed by his billionaire status. "I don't care about wealth, money, rankings," he told Bloomberg, adding that he is prepared to give away most of his wealth before he dies. Sam Bankman-Fried. Sam Bankman-Fried's ascent to crypto billionaire status has been fairly rapid. The MIT grad founded FTX, one of the world's most popular crypto exchanges, in 2019, and he was estimated to be worth $26.5 billion in October 2021 by Forbes. FTX differentiates itself from competition by offering a slate of innovative products unavailable at other exchanges. This mix includes sophisticated derivatives, digital tokens of physical stock, and pre-initial public offering (IPO) contracts.