The year has not been financially easy for crypto billionaires. A trillion-dollar crypto meltdown hit the market. As a result, investors filed thousands of lawsuits to recover their crypto losses.
If we make a conservative estimate, the best crypto experts have lost a total of 112.7 billion dollars just this year. Below is a list of the biggest crypto losers ever.
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The 5 biggest crypto losses ever
The following are the biggest crypto losses ever happened.
1. Changpeng Zhao – 82 billion U.S. dollars
The CEO and founder of Binance was the crypto billionaire who lost the most money as a result of the 2022 cryptocurrency crisis, with a net worth decline of 82 billion U.S. dollars.
Although Changpeng Zhao is referred to as the “Chinese crypto king,” 2022 was not his year. As cryptocurrency prices dropped, the CEO of Binance lost money. With a current net worth of 14.6 billion US dollars, Zhao is still the richest person in the crypto industry. His total net worth just one year ago was 96.5 billion US dollars, which represents a sharp decline.
Zhao, who is known to his friends simply as CZ, was born in China, Jiangsu precisely but he and his parents moved to Canada when he was 12 years old. He founded Binance in Singapore, but because of authorities, the company’s headquarters had to move several times.
2. Sam Bankman-Fried – 23 billion U.S. dollars
FTX CEO and founder Sam Bankman-Fried were severely affected by the crash. His estimated value before the crash was $26 billion. The two companies he owned shares in, FTX and Alameda, were his most valued holdings. However, before his arrest in late 2022 on conspiracy and fraud charges, Fried reportedly lost 23 billion dollars in just three weeks.
On December 12, 2022, Bankman-Fried was detained in the Bahamas on charges of money laundering, wire fraud, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and securities fraud. Following a liquidity problem in November 2022, the once fourth-largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world FTX, declared bankruptcy.
This occurred after it attempted to sell a substantial portion of its business operations to competitor Binance, who walked away from the arrangement, claiming that it was outside of its scope to assist FTX in resolving its problems.
The former head of FTX is allegedly using customer funds to fund his hedge fund, Alameda Research, according to reports, and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has accused Bankman-Fried of putting together a scheme to defraud investors. Bankman-Fried has refuted all accusations of impropriety, including that he knew Alameda Research was using FTX customer monies.
3. Gary Wang – 1.7 billion U.S. dollars
FTX co-founder Gary Wang has exhibited far more discretion than his outgoing co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried.
Gary Wang, the other co-founder of FTX, suffered a loss of about 1.7 billion U.S. dollars following the demise of the cryptocurrency exchange. In 2022, he was the youngest person to appear on Forbes’ list of the 400 richest people. His current net worth is estimated to be 4.2 billion U.S. dollars, according to the journal.
Ironically, Wang frequently gained attention for being more evasive than Bankman-Fried, his business partner. The two, who met at a math camp, are childhood friends who later moved in together at MIT, claims CoinDesk. Wang reportedly developed for the company tools that combined costs from publicly available flight data while working at Google.
4. Brian Armstrong – 4.7 billion U.S. dollars
In terms of losses among the top five crypto titans, he is a co-founder and the chief executive of Coinbase and took the third-highest hit. Armstrong’s wealth reportedly decreased by 4.7 billion U.S. dollars recently, according to Crypto Presales. His net worth was pegged at 6.6 billion U.S. dollars a year ago, but it is now 1.9 billion U.S. dollars.
Armstrong, a former software engineer for Airbnb, now works for Coinbase, the biggest bitcoin exchange in the US. Forbes reports that Armstrong has stated his desire for a “global, open financial system that fostered innovation and freedom” for all people.
5. Chris Larsen – 1.3 billion U.S. dollars
To assist banks like Santander in making payments using blockchain, Chris Larsen (middle) launched Ripple in 2012.
Larsen’s wealth decreased by 1.3 billion U.S. dollars in 2022. Despite this, he continues to rank among the top six richest individuals in the crypto industry, according to Crypto Vantage. Just a few months ago, the co-founder of Ripple had a 4.3 billion U.S. dollars market worth. According to assessments made by Crypto Presales, his net worth is currently estimated to be over 3 billion U.S. dollars.
According to Forbes, the purpose of the founding of Ripple was to use blockchain technology to help banks with international payments. Larsen is still executive chairman despite having left his position as CEO back in 2016. Larsen’s organization granted San Francisco State University $25 million in 2019.
The biggest cryptocurrency losses ever are from the world wealthiest people
The five richest cryptocurrency owners prior to the market meltdown were the same five biggest cryptocurrency heads who lost the most money in 2022.
These greatest crypto losers have seen their net worth decline as a result of the cryptocurrency market collapse. Some crypto industry leaders went bankrupt, while others are still among the wealthiest people.
