Ripple’s Chris Larsen is richest person in cryptocurrency on Forbes 400 list

Ripple’s Chris
Larsen
Ripple

• Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen made this year’s Forbes
  400 list as the world’s richest cryptocurrency tycoon.
• Forbes estimates that Larsen’s total net worth is $2.1
  billion. 

On Thursday, Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen
graced the Forbes 400 as the 383rd richest person on
Earth. 

Larsen’s addition to the list is noteworthy: He’s the first
person to ever make the list with a fortune amassed almost
exclusively from cryptocurrencies.

Forbes estimates Larsen’s current net worth to be $2.1
billion. While that may seem like a lot, it’s a steep decline
from
what Forbes’ estimated to be Larsen’s total $37.3
billion net worth in January of this year.

As the co-founder of the payment network Ripple, Larsen has
accumulated
a reported 5.19
billion XRP tokens — the digital token issued by
Ripple — since it was founded in 2012. In January, XRP
tokens
were trading at around $2.39, nearly four times as high
as Thursday’s
value of 53 cents.

Today, Larsen’s $2.1 billion is an impressive, but volatile
fortune. And Larsen isn’t the only one to make it big in Ripple’s
earnings. Ripple’s current CEO Brad Garlinghouse was
estimated to have a net worth of $9.5 billion in January as
well. But today, Garlinghouse’s accumulated fortune wasn’t enough
to make the cut for Forbes’ 400 list, for which the minimum bar
is $2.1 billion.