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3X as many crypto figures make it onto Forbes 2021 billionaires list as last year

Forbes released their annual billionaires list on April 6, with Amazon overlord Jeff Bezos and his $177 billion topping the list for a fourth consecutive year.

The “digital gold rush” has seen nine new crypto billionaires join the Forbes list, pushing the total up to 12 (depending on whether you count the Winklevoss twins as one or two entries.) That’s up from just four in last year’s Forbes World’s Billionaires list

Sam Bankman-Fried – Newcomer

Sam Bankman-Fried is the wealthiest crypto-billionaire, with a net worth of $8.7 billion. Bankman-Fried founded trading firm Alameda Research and popular derivatives exchange FTX. The 29-year old has made waves in the crypto space, with FTX recently winning the naming rights to Miami Heat’s home stadium for 19 years. Cointelegraph recently ranked Bankman-Fried as the third most influential figure in crypto for 2020.

The Winklevoss Twins – Newcomers

Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss have a net worth of $3 billion each and started investing in Bitcoin in 2012. The brothers famously sued Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg for IP theft in 2004 and won a $65 million settlement which they used to invest in Bitcoin. They started the crypto exchange Gemini in 2014, and they purchased Nifty Gateway in November 2019.

Chris Larsen – Returnee

Larsen, the co-founder of Ripple Labs saw his net worth grow from $2.6 billion to $3.4 billion over the past year.

Larson and Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse have been fighting an ongoing dispute with the SEC in relation to XRP and unregistered securities offerings. However, the SEC’s lawsuit against Ripple hasn’t appeared to affect its token too badly, with XRP increasing by 387% in the last 12 months.

Jed McCaleb – Newcomer

McCaleb is another co-founder of Ripple, and reportedly holds 3.4 billion XRP and 1 billion Stellar Lumens — the cryptocurrency he founded after leaving Ripple — with his holdings adding up to a net worth of $2 billion. Cointelegraph reported that McCaleb sold off $400 million worth of his XRP holdings in 2020 alone.

Michael Saylor – Newcomer

Saylor is the CEO of listed company MicroStrategy and co-founded the software giant in 1989, and now has a net worth of $2.3 billion. Saylor has become the leading advocate for corporations holding Bitcoin on balance sheets. Since its first purchase of Bitcoin in August 2020, Microstrategy has invested $2.226 billion, taking its tally up to 91,579 Bitcoins at an average cost of $24,311 per Bitcoin.

Brain Armstrong – Returnee

Armstrong is the CEO and co-founder of Coinbase and his net worth has gone from $1 billion to $6.5 billion within 12 months. Coinbase also had a successful year, generating $1 billion in revenue, and it’s set for a direct listing in a week. That will value Armstrong’s shares somewhere north of $14B, meaning he may well top the crypto billionaires’ list next year.

Fred Ersham – Newcomer

Ersham co-founded Coinbase with Brian Armstrong in 2012 and left the firm in 2017. He is now a board member of the company, and his 6% stake has an estimated worth of $1.9 billion.

Changpeng Zhao

Zhao is the founder of the largest crypto exchange Binance and owns an estimated 30% stake in the company. Zhao’s net worth is $1.9 billion, and the digital gold rush has been good to the Binance founder, with Binance Coin becoming the second-largest altcoin by market cap. Zhao revealed earlier this week that he holds close to 100% of his portfolio in crypto.

Matthew Roszak – Newcomer

Roszak is the Chairman and co-founder of blockchain technology firm Bloq and is a leading crypto and blockchain investor. Roszak is also a founding member of Tally Capital a crypto-focused private investment firm and has a net worth of $1.5 billion.

Tim Draper – Newcomer

Draper is a crypto evangelist with a net worth of $1.5 billion. He bought $18.7 million worth of Bitcoin in 2014 after it was confiscated from the Silk Road black market. Draper was also one of the primary investors in the Tezos project and co-founded Draper Fisher Jurvetson, a leading investment firm in early-stage tech startups.

Barry Silbert – Newcomer

Silbert founded the crypto conglomerate Digital Currency Group in 2015 and has a net worth of $1.6 billion. The DCG owns asset management firm Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, which currently has $46 billion worth of assets under management.

3X as many crypto figures make it onto Forbes 2021 billionaires list as last year

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Digital Asset Custody Provider Hex Trust Finalizes $6M Round led by QBN Capital

Hong Kong-headquartered crypto-asset custody service provider Hex Trust reveals that it has secured $6 million in capital via a Series A round that was led by QBN Capital.

As part of its latest investment round, Hex Trust also received contributions from Cell Rising, Radiant Tech Ventures, Kenetic Capital, HashKey, MD Labs, Fenbushi Capital, Borderless Capital, Genesis Block Ventures and Henri Arslanian.

Hex Trust’s management noted that the funds raised would allow it to further scale its business operations while being able to recruit new talent to work at its Hong Kong and Singapore offices.

Hex Trust further noted that during 2021, they’ll make plans to  expand operations into the European market, where the company has teamed up with SIA, an established provider of banking tech infrastructure.

Hex Trust said the capital secured will also be directed towards making enhancements to its proprietary, bank-grade custody solution, called Hex Safe™. The technology-driven service provides a wide range of custody and treasury management solutions for digital assets, security tokens, and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as well.

Alessio Quaglini, CEO and Co-founder at Hex Trust, stated:

“We are past the inflection point, as blockchain has established itself as the next financial markets infrastructure. Financial institutions are quickly making their moves, and the next 12 months will be critical to define the structure of the overall market. Hex Trust is now perfectly positioned to accelerate its growth and play a leading role in this space, enabling digital assets adoption for a broad range of regulated financial institutions. We are thrilled to be accompanied in this journey by such established investors.”

As noted by its management team, Hex Trust claims to be one of Asia’s leading digital asset custodians. The company says it’s “fully licensed, insured, and provides bank-grade custody for digital assets.”

Hex Trust is reportedly led by experienced banking technologists and “award-winning” financial markets. The company has developed a proprietary platform – Hex Safe™ – that “delivers a flexible custody solution for banks, financial institutions, asset managers, exchanges, and corporations to safely, securely, and efficiently operate in the digital asset ecosystem.”

As explained by Hex Trust:

‘”Through Hex Safe™, clients can access liquidity providers, exchanges and lending & staking platforms, enabling seamless access to services while assets are held in our highly-secure and regulated platform. Hex Trust has offices in Hong Kong and Singapore.”

As covered in April 2020, Hex Trust became the very first licensed crypto-asset custodian in Hong Kong to integrate its services with R3’s Corda platform.

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Celebrity VC fund unveils $1m NFT contest judged by Snoop Dogg and Mark Cuban

Sound Ventures, a venture capital fund comprising celebrities, musicians, and a billionaire, are offering at least $1 million for the “most innovative” idea for a nonfungible token, or NFT over the next week.

Announced on April 5, the event invites anyone from around the world to pitch their NFT project to a team of eight judges before April 12. According to the competition page, it doesn’t matter if the pitches are little more than an idea or a fully-fledged product already on the market. The wording also suggests the contest’s winners will have the opportunity to work alongside Sound Ventures long-term.

“Those applying should be interested in building a company over the long-term,” the announcement says.

Up to 30 finalists will be selected to partake in a private live pitch with the judges on April 21, just over two weeks from now.

Those selected are not required to accept the investment and there are no set terms for how the for how investment will be distributed. The contest’s FAQ states: “Investment amounts and terms will vary by company.” 

It is not clear how many pitches will be selected from the 30 finalists, but the competition page suggests the investments across those selected could total more than $1 million.

Sound Ventures’ co-founders, Ashton Kutcher and Guy Oseary, will sit on the judging panel with the remaining six judges including NBA Dallas Mavericks owner and billionaire Mark Cuban, rapper Snoop Dogg, EDM artist 3LAU, NFT investo Whale Shark and Metakovan, and Scalar Capital co-founder Lina Xie.

$1 million Sound Ventures Competition Judges: Sound Ventures

Whale Shark and Metakovan, although not well known as some of the other judges, are some of the most respected in the NFT space. The Whale Shark recently tokenized a vault containing their NFT collection, allowing investors to buy into it. It currently has a market cap of almost $23 million. Metakovan, or Vignesh Sundaresan, is the winner of Beeple’s $69 million Christie’s auction last month, and a prominent NFT collector.

The contest was set up by Sound Ventures’ co-founders, famous Actor Ashton Kutcher and talent manager Guy Oseary. Oseary clients include U2 and long-time business partner Madonna. The pair also run VC firm A-Grade Investments, which has a history of supporting successful projects such as Airbnb, Foursquare, Shazam, SoundCloud, Spotify, and Uber.

Ashton Kutcher has already made a questionable name for himself in the NFT sector auctioning a digital copy of a notebook scribble in August 2020. The original drawing was destroyed to showcase the advantages of digital over physical artworks, with the funds raised said to go towards for ecological conservation non-profits.

Ashton Kutcher showcases his now-incinerated artwork

The artwork titled “The Eye of The Beholder” was sold for 20 ETH (currently worth $42,600) in the auction.

Celebrity VC fund unveils $1m NFT contest judged by Snoop Dogg and Mark Cuban

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Users of top Indian crypto exchange report seeing ‘0’ funds during outage

Major Indian crypto exchange WazirX experienced disruptions caused by system failures for more than four hours Sunday. 

In a tweet at 5:24 PM UTC, WazirX CEO Nischal Shetty reported that the crypto exchange had “hit some internal limits” set by one of the infrastructure providers. The load on Wazir’s system reportedly created “a ripple effect on all the services,” causing some of the exchange’s 1.8 million users to report being unable to see any funds in their accounts during the outage.

“It’s because parts of the system are not working,” said Shetty. “One such system is the one that shows the fund value. It’ll start showing again as soon as all the services are back up.”

More than four hours later, the CEO reported that users could once again see funds in their accounts and were able to cancel orders, but said that trading was still disabled.

According to WazirX co-founder and chief operating officer Siddharth Menon, the exchange was experiencing all-time high trades across its systems shortly before the outage occurred. Shetty reported that the firm had seen more than $270 million in trading volume within 24 hours earlier today, making the crypto exchanges one of the largest in India. In addition, the price of WazirX’s native WRX token has risen more than 160% in the last day to reach $4.15 at the time of publication.

Reports have been circulating for several months claiming the Indian government is planning to introduce a possible ban on private cryptocurrencies. Shetty has joined representatives from other exchanges in India in drafting a presentation note highlighting recommendations for crypto regulations in the country. The WazirX CEO said the approach was necessary given the negative stance taken by government authorities toward cryptocurrencies.

Users of top Indian crypto exchange report seeing \’0\’ funds during outage

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Celebrate Earth Day With Crowdfunding Changemakers

We’re turning Earth Day 2021 into a whole week of events at Indiegogo! That’s because Earth Day is kind of a big deal around here. Know why? Because Indiegogo is your go-to hub for green innovation and technology. Since our inception, Indiegogo has been home to hundreds of campaigns that aim at saving the planet, whether they be for solar panels, plastic-free products, or alternative transport. 

But recently, green campaigns have become a cornerstone of crowdfunding. In 2020, support for green campaigns grew nearly 900% as compared to the previous year. That’s incredible! Thanks to backers like you, earth-friendly tech is helping to make the world a better place.

That’s why we’re excited to bring back our popular Virtual Hangouts for a very special series taking place the entire week of Earth Day. You’ll hear from changemakers, entrepreneurs, and creators on the future of green tech, sustainable fashion, and more via live Zoom roundtables and fireside chats. Catch the details on all the sessions below! 

Click here to sign up! Each session is free and when you register you’ll get a link you can use to join the live session. 

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Electric Transportation: E-Bikes, Marketing Capital, and a $1.3M Crowdfunding Campaign with Clearbanc

Date: 4/20 at 12pm PT

RSVP here

Changemakers in Fashion: Making Style Sustainable and Circular

Date: 4/21 at 8 AM PT

RSVP here

earth-day-the perils of greenwashing in crowdfunding

Real Talk: The Perils of Greenwashing in Crowdfunding

Date: 4/21 at 11 AM PT

RSVP here

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Crowdfunding for Environmental Impact

Date: 4/22 at 10am PT

RSVP here

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The Future of Green Tech with Arrow Electronics

Date: 4/22 at 12pm PT

RSVP here

Ready to celebrate Earth Day with crowdfunding changemakers? Click here to RSVP for our Virtual Hangouts today! Each session is free and when you register you’ll get a link you can use to join the live session.

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