In 2017, the value of cryptocurrencies skyrocketed above 500 billion euros, raising their share of "crypto millionaires" in Bitcoin and recently in Ripple.
Some lucky few even managed to reach the select club of billionaires, and not only thanks to the most highly valued cryptocurrency, the Bitcoin, which has a total value of 197 billion euros.
These include two billionaires who are now among the richest Americans in the country: the former president and CEO of Ripple, a San Francisco-based company that uses blockain technology for international financial transactions. It issues a token called the Ripple, or XRP, which on 1 January had a total market value of €73.8 billion, with each XRP traded for €1.99 according to Coinmarketcap. The previous week, the Ripple had gone beyond Ethereum to become the second largest crypto-based active ingredient on the market.
The company's co-founder and former CEO, Chris Larsen, who resigned in November 2016 and is now its executive chairman, has XRP 5.19 billion in his personal portfolio, and 17% of the company's shares, according to sources within Ripple. Its total assets, according to the quotations of 1 January, therefore amount to 31 billion euros.
This would put him in 15th place in the Forbes 2017 ranking of the top 400 American fortunes, tied with Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's former CEO and current owner of the Los Angeles Clippers basketball club. It is said to be slightly above Abigail Johnson, the CEO of Fidelity, who is herself a big fan of cryptomaniacs, also surpassing trader Ray Dalio and investor Carl Icahn, who both made headlines by calling the Bitcoin a stock market bubble.
Ripple's current CEO, Brad Garlinghouse, owns 6.3% of the company's shares, according to an internal source, as well as XRP tokens. Its net assets are estimated to be at least 7.9 billion euros. He would thus finish 54th in the rankings, if we include Mr. Larsen, only two places under Charles Swab.
The XRP jumped in 2017 from €0.005 on 1 January 2017 to €1.9 on 31 December, an increase of 38,000 %.
Someone else has become richer with XRPs: it's Jed McCaleb, co-founder of Ripple. He left the company and entered into an agreement with her regarding the XRPs in her possession. Mr. McCaleb said he had donated XRP 2 billion to a fund of his choice. The remaining 5.3 billion XRPs (in February 2016) are placed in a securities account at Ripple, and distributed monthly. Since that agreement was reached, it cannot sell more than 1% of the average daily volume per trade, which is now only 1% to 2% of the total XRP trading volume. If Mr. McCaleb had access to all the XRPs at once, he'd be a billionaire.
He also founded Mt. Gox in 2010, and declares that he no longer has any Bitcoin because he sold them to found Ripple. Since he left, he has founded Stellar, but his billion Lumens, valued at €0.40 a billion, is not enough to make him a billionaire, and won't make it for a few years.
Ripple explains that it already has more than 100 customers, including American Express and Santander, who collaborate to make payments between the United States and Great Britain using Ripple technology.
As it is issued by a company, the XRP is less decentralized than many other cryptomonnaies. For example, Ripple itself holds XRP 61.3 billion, of which XRP 55 billion is held in escrow. Only 38.7 billion XRP have been distributed to date.
The Bitcoin, on the other hand, is much less concentrated, even if more owners of Bitcoin own more tokens. Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious person behind the Bitcoin, is said to be the one who would own the most, about 980,000. This represents only 5.8% of the Bitcoin in circulation.