Have you ever wonder who are the whales in the crypto market or those who got the biggest crypto holdings?

After introducing cryptocurrencies in the market in 2009, the crypto space has grown dramatically. Bitcoin, the first crypto in the market has turned the early adopters, developers, pioneers, and builders to billionaires, joining the list the most wealthiest individuals in the world.

However, the volatility of the Bitcoin price also fluctuates their crypto assets making it hard to determine who exactly has the biggest crypto holdings at any time. And according to bitinfocharts, as of January 2021, 25 anonymous individuals are holding more than a billion dollars worth of crypto. Five of those belongs to Binance, Houbi, CoinCheck, Bittrex, and Bitfinex.

But as crypto savvy, there is a possibility that these individuals may have split their crypto holdings up in different addresses. From simple individuals to crypto billionaires. Let's see who got their fortune from holding cryptocurrencies.

The Winklevoss Twins

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• Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss are the founder of crypto exchange Gemini and was included in the 2020 lists of Bitcoin Billionairess. Winklevoss Capital is one of the most influential crypto reserves, and they have worked tirelessly to persuade regulators to permit the first bitcoin ETF which is still unfulfilled until now. The twins are set to be the subject of a film The Accidental Billionaire from the book of Ben Mezrich. The film will show how the twins used their settlement money from Facebook to invest in Bitcoin and become billionaires. Accordingt to Forbes, the twins have approximately $1.4 billion each.

Matthew Roszak

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• Matthew Roszak is the chairman and co-founder of a leading blockchain technology company, Bloq. He is also a founding partner of Tally Capital which is focused on digital assets and blockchain-enabled technology. In addition, he serves as chairman of the Chamber of Digital Commerce, the world’s first and largest blockchain trade association. Roszak also serves a nonprofit foundation BitGive that enhances philanthropic impact with blockchain technology. His crypto net worth is estimated to be around $1.2 billion according to Forbes.

Brian Armstrong

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• Brian Armstrong is the CEO and co-founder of Coinbase and manager of GiveCrypto.org. Armstrong is considered as the youngest crypto billionaire at the age of 37. He has lead a team of over 200 employees and Coinbase serving over 10M customers across 32 countries. His crypto net worth is estimated to be $1 billion according to Forbes 2020 list of Crypto Billionaires.

Tim Draper

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• Tim Draper is a Bitcoin advocate and an early investor in cryptocurrency. Back when the price of Bitcoin was only $6, he bought $250,000 worth of Bitcoin. Unfortunately, when Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox collapsed in 2014, he lost his entire investment. Even though he lost his entire investment, he won a bid by U.S. Marshals for approximately $20 million for 30,000 bitcoin in 2014. By the same year in December, he won another 2,000 BTC or roughly $750,000 at the time in an auction held by U.S. Marshals. Draper is also a founder of Draper Associates, Draper Fisher Jurvetson (later renamed Threshold), and Draper University of Heroes. And in 2013, the school was the first institute to accept Bitcoin as a tuition payment. According to Forbes, Draper has estimated cryptocurrency net worth of $1.1 billion.

Changpeng Zhao

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• Changpeng Zhao also known as CZ is the founder and CEO of the world's largest crypto exchange, Binance. He is also one of the members of the team that developed Blockchain.info and also served as chief technology officer of OKCoin. He launched Binance in July 2017 and in just less than eight months, he was able to grew Binance as the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, as of April 2018. CZ's crypto net worth is estimated at $1.2 billion as of 2019 and majority of which are likely Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Binance native coin BNB.

Michael Saylor

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• Michael Saylor is CEO of MicroStrategy. As a major stockholder of his company, he has put more than $1.2 billion of MicroStrategy funds into Bitcoin. MicroStrategy is now making Bitcoin their "primary treasury reserve asset". Saylor becomes a regular on the cryptocurrency talk that has made him a darling of crypto-loving Redditors. His strategy has been effective and now he claims that he owns nearly 18,000 Bitcoin, and MicroStrategy's stock has risen from about $92 in mid-March to nearly $400 at the end of the year 2020. You could tell that majority of his fortune is dependent on cryptocurrency.  His estimate cryptocurrency net worth is $600 million according to Forbes.

Chris Larsen

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• Chris Larsen is a co-founder and former CEO of OpenCoin, which is now known as Ripple. But before founding Ripple, he co-founded a plethora of multi-million dollar companies which contributed a tiny frac.tion of his fortune. In 2016, he stepped down as CEO of Ripple but took the role of executive chairman. Larsen's fortune is estimated to be $2.7 billion.

Micree Zhan

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• Micree Zhan is a crypto billionaire that no one has ever heard of. He is the least known in the list but owns around $4 billion. He is an electronic engineer and co-founder of Bitmain, a Bitcoin mining hardware manufacturer. He developed the custom application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) chips that have stimulated the global growth. The company has dispute recently between Zhan and co-founder Jihan Wu. It ended in December 2020 when Zhan bought Wu out of the company for $600 million. Zhan has promised that Bitmain will complete its planned IPO by the end of 2022 under his leadership.

Honorable Mention: Satoshi Nakamoto

• Last but not least is no other than the anonymous founder of Bitcoin. According to research, Satoshi Nakamoto could have as much as 1.1 million Bitcoin stashed away. And if you will base it on the current price of Bitcoin, his crypto fortune will be worth around $40 billion. Satoshi hasn't moved a single cent yet, so she, he, or they may have met an untimely end.

So during the bull run, these individuals might be the whales that you are thinking of.

Thanks for reading @Jane

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