Page 76 - Forbes - USA (February 2018)

F I N T E C H
CR YPT O BILLIONAIRES

he left to pursue a new idea for it entity with a more formal gov- ploded, we decided to liquidate,”
a blockchain-based social net- erning structure. Buterin want- Hoskinson says. He refuses to
work, Steemit, where users are ed to keep Ethereum a nonprof- share when they sold. “Relative
rewarded with tokens for posting it organization with an open- to our burn rate, though, IOHK
and curating content. Over the source, decentralized gover- can now stay open for decades.”
past two months, Steemit’s coin Charles nance. Hoskinson left Ethereum IOHK’s key project: Cardano,
(called Steem) has surged, push- Hoskinson in June 2014. a public blockchain and smart-
ing its value to $1.4 billion. “At the time I was pret- contract platform which hosts

Larimer has since joined ty pissed off,” says Hoskinson. the Ada cryptocurrency. At $16
COFOUNDER, ETHEREUM,
forces with Brendan Blumer (see IOHK, 30 “Ether went up [to a market cap billion, Ada is now the fi ft h-larg-
above) to start Block.one. BUILDER OPPORTUNIST of] $120 billion, so what the hell est in market cap, just two spots
Crypto Net Worth: do I know?” behind Ethereum. IOHK’s posi-

$500 million–$600 million After taking a six-month sab- tion in Ada is worth over $1 bil-
batical—in which he contem- lion. IOHK also runs Ethereum
In April 2013, when Charles plated going back to mathemat- Classic, which has a market cap
Hoskinson quit his consulting ics—he was approached by for- of around $3 billion.
Valery Vavilov gig to start an online school the mer Ethereum colleague Jere-
Bitcoin Education Project, “my
my Wood to form a new proj-
CEO, BITFURY, 38 parents thought I was crazy,” he ect called IOHK, an engineering
BUILDER INFRASTRUCTURE says. “Everybody thought I was company that builds cryptocur-
crazy. But I said, No, no, I got it
Crypto Net Worth: rencies and blockchains for cor-
$500 million–$700 million all fi gured out.” porations, government entities Brad
Smart or lucky, Hoskinson and academic institutions.
Growing up in Latvia in the wound up meeting Vitalik Buter- “We put in a few hundred Garlinghouse
1980s, programming whiz in at the online school and be- thousand dollars initially and
Vavilov was scarred by the Soviet came one of the eight original started getting contracts to build CEO, RIPPLE, 47
Union’s collapse in 1991. “We just cofounders of Ethereum. Soon cryptocurrencies,” says Hoskin- BUILDER
literally lost everything,” he says. after, disagreements arose about son. With all their revenue com- Crypto Net Worth:

“Money became paper. Patents how to structure the project. “It ing in the form of Bitcoin, IOHK $400 million–$500 million
become worthless.” Th at experi- was a boardroom brawl,” he says. saw huge returns as the coin

ence shaped his thinking—that Hoskinson wanted to accept ven- soared in value. This Harvard M.B.A. has a ster-
decentralized frameworks needed ture capital and create a for-prof- “When the crypto market ex- ling mainstream tech pedi-
to be designed so people could al- gree: CEO at Hightail (former-
ways retain their property. ly YouSendIt), president of con-
In 2011 Vavilov cofound- sumer applications at AOL and
ed Bitfury, a startup that “mines” a senior vice president at Yahoo.
Bitcoin, or uses computers to As Ripple CEO, Garlinghouse
solve complex mathematical has a 6.3% stake in Ripple the
problems that add a new block company—but that’s not how
of transactions to the blockchain he makes our list. Th ough Rip-
and earn Bitcoin. For four years ple controls 61.3 billion XRP,
he struggled to raise outside cap- holdings that total $95 bil-
ital. “Very few investors believed lion in value, Ripple’s own ven-
in this technology,” he says. So ture capitalists value the compa-
he used the Bitcoin he mined to ny at only $410 million. Like so
fund the business, selling it as many operators on this list, it’s
low as $30. Bitfury has generated his personal stash of XRP coins,

about 800,000 Bitcoins since its confirmed “in the nine fi gures,”
start, Vavilov says. that gets him here.
Based in Amsterdam, his
400-person company is the ulti- VALERY VAVILOV WEARS A WOOL SPORT JACKET ($2,395), WOOL SHIRT ($445), AND JEANS ($395) BY ERMENEGILDO ZEGNA.
mate pick-and-shovel operation
to the blockchain boom. Besides
being a top player in the Bitcoin
mining market, it also makes and Barry Silbert
sells hardware, including proces-
sor chips and a product called CEO, DIGITAL CURRENCY GROUP,
41
Blockbox, a mobile bitcoin min- BUILDER ESTABLISHMENT
ing machine that typically retails
for more than $1 million. Bitfury Crypto Net Worth: PHOTOGRAPHED BY JAMEL TOPPIN
is on track to bring in $400 mil- $400 million–$500 million
lion in revenues in 2018. VALERY VAVILOV Barry Silbert became known on
Wall Street for building Second-

74 | FORBES FEBRUARY 28, 2018