19 people across world become billionaires via cryptocurrency

New Delhi: As the world of cryptocurrency tumbles down amid regulatory crackdowns, there are 19 individuals in the world who achieved the title of a billionaire through cryptocurrency.

One cryptocurrency in particular that has led to investors amassing impressive returns is Bitcoin.

Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonym for the creator of Bitcoin, is widely assumed to have the most Bitcoin wealth. Though the creator has not officially revealed the amount of Bitcoin he holds, estimates predict he has a wallet containing around 1.1 million BTC, according to data shared by niche news publisher BanklessTimes.com.

This would convert to a staggering around $25 billion.

“Following Nakamoto is Changpeng Zhao, commonly known as CZ who is the founder and CEO of Binance, with a total of $65 billion. Prior to Sam Bankman-Fried’s scandal, he took third position with a total of $24 billion,” the report showed.

Looking at the landscape of BTC investing across countries, the US takes the lead, with 46 million holders. This is significantly more than India in second place with 27 million holders and Pakistan with 26 million. However, the most Bitcoin owned is distributed between just four wallets which holds a collective 663,306 Bitcoins.

Aside from individuals, there are large corporations that have accumulated great volumes of Bitcoin.

In fact, a total of 23 publicly traded companies have sizable investments in BTC, said the report.

The company with the largest investment in BTC among these is MicroStrategy Inc. with an astonishing 129,699 BTC, equating to $3,975 million.

Another high profile example of company ownership of BTC is Tesla, which in 2021, purchased $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin. The automotive and clean energy company also began to accept BTC as a form of payment which would’ve increased their total value invested even higher.

However, the company later went on to offload the majority of its bitcoin holdings in 2022, said the report.