FX.co ★ Top 5 crypto billionaires with biggest losses in 2022

1 – Changpeng Zhao

A big scandal that erupted between Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao and FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried at the year-end triggered a massive collapse in the crypto market. The crypto winter that came after this delivered a hard blow to Zhao’s wealth. The Chinese crypto king has lost almost $82 billion, the worst damage among other crypto moguls. At present, Zhao’s current net worth is $14 billion, down from $96 billion a year ago, according to Bloomberg.

2 – Sam Bankman-Fried

This year, the FTX crypto exchange faced a liquidity crisis. Binance, the main competitor of FTX, agreed to buy the rival company. However, Binance revoked the deal after a thorough examination revealed that FTX had been using customer assets to cover trading losses. Shortly after, FTX filed for bankruptcy and its ex-CEO Sam Bankman-Fried came under investigation. In just three weeks, his wealth dropped by $23 billion.

3 – Brian Armstrong

A year ago, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong had a net worth of $6.6 billion. Today, his wealth is currently valued at $1.9 billion, showing a staggering loss of 70% over the past 12 months. One of the main reasons behind these losses was the failed deal between Binance and FTX. Against this backdrop, Coinbase stock plummeted to all-time lows so that the company lost about a fifth of its market value.

4 – Gary Wang

At the start of 2022, Gary Wang, the co-founder of the notorious FTX exchange, became the youngest person to appear on Forbes top 400 rich list. Yet, at the end of the year, the crypto market crash wiped $1.7 billion off his fortune. His net worth now stands at around $4 billion. Yet, this seems nothing compared to the fact that following the FTX collapse, Gary Wang has been held under supervision by Bahamian authorities alongside Sam Bankman-Fried.

5 – Chris Larsen

In 2012, US entrepreneur Chris Larsen founded Ripple, a private software company that later launched its own blockchain project. He stepped down as a chief executive officer in 2016 but he still serves as Ripple’s executive chairman. Chris Larsen is the fifth wealthiest person in the crypto space. However, he could not avoid the consequences of the market downturn and saw his net worth shrink by $1.3 billion to $3 billion.