- Satoshi Nakamoto tops the blockchain wealth rankings with over $100 billion spread across thousands of inactive wallets.
- Several early investors and developers such as Vitalik Buterin and Stefan Thomas have lost some of their wealth or it is inaccessible for various reasons.
A new one Message Blockchain analysis platform Arkham Intelligence presents the ten richest identified crypto owners. The ranking only considers assets that can be verified through on-chain records and does not include assets held on centralized exchanges or through private agreements.
The list is headed by Satoshi Nakamoto, the anonymous inventor of Bitcoin. He owns around $115 billion that he earned from mining Bitcoin in 2009 and 2010. Nakamoto keeps the money in more than 22,000 wallets, but none of them show any activity. Bloomberg lists Nakamoto as one of the 20 richest people in the world.
The second name is Justin Sun, a Chinese entrepreneur who founded TRON. He runs BitTorrent and two major crypto exchanges. His on-chain wealth is listed at $1.9 billion, but some estimates put it at $5 billion to $7 billion.
Estonian banker Rain Lohmus invested $75,000 in Ethereum’s initial coin offering in 2014. This purchase earned him 250,000 ETH. Today his holdings are worth $854 million. However, Lohmus lost access to his wallet, making the funds inaccessible, although they still show up on the blockchain.
James Howells also falls into this category. In 2013, he threw away a hard drive that contained the keys to 8,000 mined Bitcoins. The hard drive is now in a landfill. He asked the Newport authorities to dig them up, but they refused, even when he offered a share of the lost wealth.
Another example is Stefan Thomas. In 2011, he received 7,002 BTC for creating a Bitcoin animation. He stored the keys in an IronKey wallet but forgot the password. With only two attempts left, trying to access the $734 million wallet is very risky.
Developers and traders with documented assets
Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin owns $867 million, mostly in ETH. His well-known public wallet has received large amounts of tokens from meme coin projects like Shiba Inu, which want to attract attention by associating with him. Most of his holdings date back to Ethereum’s launch in 2015.
Owen Gunden, a former trader and early Bitcoin investor, made his fortune through arbitrage trading and smart investing. He once held the third spot on this list, but recently he has fallen behind. Last week, he sent 1,800 BTC worth $200 million to a Kraken address, likely to cash out.
Shixing Mao, also known as DiscusFish, founded F2Pool and Cobo.com. He owns $275 million on the blockchain. Mao creates crypto infrastructure and mines coins, giving him a strong and lasting influence in the industry.
Lesser-known personalities with large crypto fortunes
Clifton Collins amassed 6,000 BTC through illegal cannabis sales in 2011 and 2012. He kept the private keys on paper in a fishing rod. Since his arrest by police, no one knows where the fishing rod is, and the Irish authorities have been unable to access the assets even after confiscating his holdings.
Patricio Worthalter, the inventor of POAP, owns $226 million. POAP allows users to track participation in blockchain events via NFT badges. Its fortune comes from the growth and adoption of the protocol in Ethereum applications and its long-standing presence in the space.
The current list includes early miners, developers, traders and entrepreneurs. Although their wealth is enormous, a significant portion of it remains locked away or inaccessible. While blockchain transparency allows these numbers to be tracked, it does not take into account off-chain or institutional ownership.
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