Page 70 - Forbes - USA (February 2018)

F I N T E C H
CR YPT O BILLIONAIRES

I can.” Given these kind of num- branded developer’s academy cy trading systems for brokers. ing platform in 2015, the “Win-
bers, he’d be crazy not to. were recently launched. Crypto- In 2013 CZ learned about Bit- klevii” worked closely with New
industry insiders believe he may coin and began bouncing around York regulators. “Our philosophy
be the single-largest holder of prominent crypto projects, in- is to ask for permission, not for-
Ether, with valuations as high as cluding Blockchain.info, where giveness,” Cameron Winklevoss
$10 billion, but Lubin insists he’s he worked with evangelists like has said.
been selling. For now we’ll split Roger Ver and Ben Reeves. He Today Gemini sits along-
Joseph Lubin the diff erence. eventually decided to create a side Coinbase as one of the few
pure-play crypto-exchange that places where U.S residents can
COFOUNDER, ETHEREUM; would not transact with fi at cur- easily sell crypto for U.S. dollars.
FOUNDER, CONSENSYS 53 rencies and thus avoid connec- It recently handled $300 million
BUILDER
tions to fi nancial institutions. of transactions daily and might

Crypto Net Worth: When he finally launched Bi- have more long-term value than
Changpeng
$1 billion–$5 billion nance this past July, he caught the twins’ currency holdings.
Joseph Lubin, the founder of the “CZ” Zhao the Bitcoin bubble’s ascent When it gained approval to op-
erate as a financial services fi rm

perfectly.
600-employee behemoth Con- two years ago, it cleared a high
senSys, which serves as a “ven- CEO, BINANCE, 41 barrier to entry, says Stan Mi-
ture production studio” for the INFRASTRUCTURE BUILDER roshnik, CEO of the Element, an
Ethereum ecosystem, began his Crypto Net Worth: investment bank for cryptocur-
career working in robotics, ma- $1.1 billion–$2 billion rency token sales. “That’s a years-

chine vision, neural nets and Tyler and long and capital-intensive legal

software engineering. He then Seven months ago Binance didn’t process.”
transitioned into fi nance, build- exist. Since then, its 1.4 million- Cameron
ing trading systems, running transactions-per-second capabil-
a hedge fund and working for ity have attracted 6 million users, Winklevoss
Goldman Sachs’ private wealth making it the world’s largest cryp-
management division. He also to-exchange. “No decentralized COFOUNDERS, WINKLEVOSS
CAPITAL, 36
detoured to Jamaica for a stint in exchange today can handle our INFRASTRUCTURE BUILDER Matthew
music management. volume, and none are as secure as
After reading the Satoshi we are,” says its founder, Chang- Crypto Net Worth: Mellon

Nakamoto Bitcoin white paper, peng Zhao, known as CZ. Th e $900 million–$1.1 billion each
he felt blockchain technolo- market seems to buy it: Since its Tyler Winklevoss and his twin INDIVIDUAL INVESTOR, 54

gy, and its possibility for creat- July initial coin offering, a Binance brother, Cameron, have waged, ESTABLISHMENT OPPORTUNIST
ing shared infrastructure, could token has soared from about 10 for now, one of the great come- Crypto Net Worth:
serve as “an organizing principle cents to $13, giving it a market back stories in American busi- $900 million–$1 billion
for Earth, the world, the plan- capitalization of $1.3 billion. Zhao, ness. For years they were a

et,” he says. A Toronto native, who wears a black hoodie, like punch line, the privileged jocks This heir to one of America’s
like his Ethereum cofounders some cross between Mark Zucker- that Mark Zuckerberg left in the great banking fortunes, and a

Anthony Di Iorio and Vitalik berg and Steve Jobs, also owns the dust to build Facebook. former chair of the New York
Buterin, Lubin heard of Buter- biggest stake in the coins. Famously, the Winklevoss Republican Party’s fi nance com-
in’s November 2013 Ethereum CZ was born in Jiangsu, twins accused Zuckerberg of mittee, has struggled with drug
white paper, and after he spoke China. Both of his parents were stealing their idea for a social net- addiction. So when he began

with them on New Year’s Day educators; his father, a profes- work, suing Facebook and settling dabbling heavily in cryptocur-
2014, he committed to support sor, was labeled a “pro-bour- for $65 million in Facebook stock rencies years ago, his friends
the project. Rumored to be one geois intellect” and temporar- and cash. They drew down on and family tried to dissuade

of the top buyers in the Ethere- ily exiled shortly after CZ was that war chest when they began him, figuring it was another er-

um crowdsale, Lubin, who had born. The family eventually emi- investing in Bitcoin in a big way ratic obsession. And, indeed, he

been funding ConsenSys with grated to Vancouver, Canada, in in 2012—a move that drew yet abandoned some early invest-
his stash of Bitcoins, says he the late 1980s. As a teenager, CZ more derision as Facebook shares ments and sold his Bitcoin a few
began selling some of his Ethers pitched in to cover the household continued exploding. years ago.

last year to fund the fi rm’s de- expenses, flipping burgers at Mc- But the former Olympic But then Mellon got turned on
velopment. He holds a major- Donald’s and working overnight rowers held on to their Bitcoin to XRP, spending some $2 million
ity stake in ConsenSys, which shifts at a gas station. through the digital currency’s vi- to acquire coins, which he liked

provides security audits, token After graduating from Mon- olent ups and downs, including because it’s one of the few crypto-
launches and other services to treal’s McGill University with a an 80% drop from 2013 to 2015, currencies that are working with-
traditional companies. It also degree in computer science, he and sunk more money into other in the banking system. “Crypto is
helps launch crypto businesses, built trading systems in both crypto-assets like Ether. scary and dark. It’s anti-America,”
including Gnosis, Singular, ad- Tokyo and New York for compa- They also built a lucrative says Mellon. “I am pro-America,

Chain, Grid+ and BlockApps, nies like Bloomberg. In 2005 he New York-based cryptocurrency pro-business and pro-bank. Th at’s
some of which have spun out moved to Shanghai to start Fu- exchange, Gemini, where inves- why I went with Ripple.”
already. Venture capital, asset sion Systems, which delivered tors can buy and sell digital cur- Mellon’s XRP is worth
management and a ConsenSys- some of the fastest high-frequen- around $1 billion. Recently di-
rencies. Before opening the trad-
68 | FORBES FEBRUARY 28, 2018