The cryptocurrency space created a lot of wealth in a short space of time throughout the massive boom in 2017. Prices were rapidly rising and people were able to make fast money.
While a lot of people subsequently got burnt when the market crash kicked in, others were able to liquidate their holdings at the right moment in time and accumulate massive wealth. Others were able to invest in notable cryptocurrency and blockchain focused companies at the ground level.
There are some very notable investors who can include themselves in the list of those who saw massive success with cryptocurrency investing. These people saw an opportunity and were able to take full advantage of it.
This article looks at some of the well-known investors who won big through cryptocurrency investing
Winklevoss twins
Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss has a long and interesting history for two young men. They were keen rowers, representing both the Harvard University and Oxford University rowing teams, both of which they attended. The twins went on to partake in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing where they finished in 6th place.
It was in 2002 that the two brothers founded a social networking platform called ConnectU along with Divya Narendra. This launched in May 2004. It was not long after that they filed a lawsuit against the founder of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg.
The twins claim that Zuckerberg stole the idea of Facebook from ConnectU. The twins were awarded $65m following this lawsuit and were portrayed in the film – the Social Network which looked at the early days of Facebook.
Using their newly acquired wealth, they began to operate as venture capitalists. It was in April of 2013 that the twins said they were the owners of almost 1% of the total amount of bitcoin that was in circulation back then. When the Bitcoin prices skyrocketed, their holdings were worth more than $1bn dollars. This made them the first bitcoin billionaires.
They are still involved in a number of different ventures in the cryptocurrency space. For example, they have their own exchange called Gemini and they also sell exchange traded products in this space. They have been attempting to launch an exchange traded fund (ETF) or cryptocurrencies for many years, but they have yet to get approval for this idea.
Barry Silbert
Silbert is the founder and CEO of the Digital Currency Group. The aim of this company is to rapidly develop the worldwide financial system. They are trying to do so through aiding the likes of blockchain companies.
Many believe that blockchain holds the keys for massive strikes in efficiency and the effectiveness of the global financial sector. The company has made investments in more than 100 companies in the space, including one of the leading news sites in the cryptocurrency space – Coindesk. They are the leader when it comes to investing in companies in this space, which has led to Gilbert being given the nickname of ‘The King of Crypto’.
As part of their portfolio, the Digital Currency Group owns a digital currency trading firm called Genesis and a cryptocurrency investing company called Grayscale. Gilbert was also the person to open the Bitcoin Investment Trust, which is an ETF which tracks Bitcoin’s price.
Dan Morehead
Pantera Capital was the first investment firm created which only focuses on cryptocurrency investments and it was founded by Dan Morehead. Their first crypto fund offering came to market in 2013.
The company remains as one of the largest holders of cryptocurrencies among any institutions. Since they began, they have generated massive levels of profit for their investors.
They make investments in many different types of crypto-related companies, such as coin trading systems like Augur and investment firms like Polychain Capital and exchanges such as Bitstamp.
Morehead has a lot of experience in the world of finance a she was previously the leader for CFO and macro trading in Tiger Management, as well as previously being a trader for Goldman Sachs. He currently has a board position for Bitstamp.
Blythe Masters
Masters previously was a managing director for JP Morgan. Now she is Digital Asset Holding’s CEO. This is a firm that mainly focuses on creating tools for processing that are encryption based.
This allows securities trading to have quicker settlement speeds, meeting with compliance standards, as well as increasing security and efficiency standards. Since May 2018, they have been partnering with Google Cloud to provide certain tools for the developers at Google. This means that they don’t have to spend the time having to build these tools themselves from the ground up.
Effectively, Digital Asset Holdings is trying to bring blockchain technology to Wall Street activities. To date, they have raised more than $150 million through investment rounds. Their very first client was JP Morgan and has seen quicker settlements of transactions. With Master’s former background of being a managing director at JP Morgan at just 28 years old. She adds a lot of credibility to the sector.
Michael Novogratz
Michael Novogratz is a billionaire who has made investments totaling as much as 30% of his entire net worth in digital currencies. His time as an investor in the space began back in 2015 when he launched a $500 million crypto fund, of which he invested $150 million of his own money.
He has been a pundit no Bitcoin price movements since 2017. However, his prediction that the price of Bitcoin would reach $40,000 by the end of 2018 of curse did not come anywhere near close to reality. There is no indication as to how much money Novogratz still has in the digital currency space following the bear market that ran throughout 2018 and into 2019.