Page 68 - Forbes - USA (February 2018)

F I N T E C H
CR YPT O BILLIONAIRES

bean and is given to making grandiose statements from the balcony of his pent-

house in Santa Monica, California. “This is an opportunity to be a trillionaire—
someone who is positively impacting a trillion living things on this planet,” he
tells Forbes. Pierce once raised $60 million from Goldman Sachs with the help
of Stephen Bannon, President Trump’s former chief strategist, to fund a com-
pany that sold virtual swords, chain mail and horses to role-playing videogam- Chris Larsen
ers. He also once got into trouble with his partners in a 1990s-era dot-com start-
COFOUNDER, RIPPLE, 57
up after they were accused, in civil lawsuits, of sexual abuse of underaged boys. OPPORTUNIST BUILDER

(Pierce has always denied the accusations and was never charged; one of his busi- Crypto Net Worth:
ness partners, however, pleaded guilty to transporting minors across state lines $7.5 billion–$8 billion
for the purpose of sex.)

Pierce was early into the crypto game, first mining Bitcoin and then fi nancing The richest man in crypto is
Chris Larsen, a Stanford M.B.A.
blockchain startups and investing in dozens of initial coin offerings. Although he and veteran Silicon Valley op-

publicly proclaims he is pledging a billion dollars to charity, he refuses to provide erator who at the January mar-
documentation that proves he has anywhere near that much money. ket peak fleetingly had a fortune

Given this opaqueness and crypto’s hyper-volatility, we are presenting our of some $20 billion, the bulk of it
net-worth estimates in ranges. We based our numbers on estimated holdings derived from his 5.2 billion XRP,

of cryptocurrencies (a few provided proof), post-tax profits from trading cryp- the token of Ripple, the compa-
ny he cofounded with Jed Mc-
to-assets and stakes in crypto-related businesses. We’ve also categorized our Caleb in 2012 to facilitate inter-
crypto rich list into national payments for
five groups: ideal- banks using blockchain

ists, builders, oppor- technology. His company
tunists, infrastructure controls 61 billion of the
players and establish- 100 billion XRP in sup-
ply. Forbes is calculating
ment investors. Many his net worth based sole-
fit into more than one

ly on the XRP he owns
category. personally and the value
It’s a near certainty of his 17% stake in Rip-
that we’ve missed some ple, against the compa-
people and that some ny’s most recent valua-
of our estimates are tion: $410 million. Rip-
wide of the mark. But ple counts Mitsubishi Fi-
nancial, Bank of America
this was equally true and Santander among its
when we launched 100-plus customers.
the first Forbes 400 A serial entrepre-

list of America’s rich- neur, Larsen cofound-
est people in 1982. At ed the online mortgage
the time, many peo- lender e-Loan, in 1997,
and, eight years later,
ple said we couldn’t— Prosper, the peer-to-peer
or shouldn’t—publish lender that has been val-
it. We did so anyway. ued at more than $1 bil-
And we fi rmly believe lion. He seems to have
we made the world a hit it bigger here, even
better place by shin- if XRP is nothing more
than a speculation vehi-
ing a light on the invis- cle—and one that’s down
ible rich. Just as crypto COIN ILLUSTRATIONS BY FILIP PERAIC FOR FORBES; PHOTOGRAPH BY ETHAN PINES FOR FORBES
65% since the beginning
has evolved from the of the year. While Lar-
days of the Silk Road sen stepped down from
drug site and the Mt. the company more than a
Gox digital hijacking, year ago, he still serves as
fortunes of this mag- executive chairman and
nitude should never be tells Forbes he’s “100%
MATTHEW MELLON focused on Ripple and
allowed to lurk in the helping the team any way
shadows.

66 | FORBES FEBRUARY 28, 2018