According to a new report, more than 80,000 new cryptocurrency millionaires have been created around the world over the past year as Bitcoin (BTC) and other digital assets rallied.
The report by New World Wealth and Henley & Partners estimates that the number of crypto millionaires has risen 95% to 172,300 individuals worldwide amid a rally that began in early 2023.
The same report states that the number of Bitcoin millionaires has more than doubled to 85,400 over the last year.
There are now 325 crypto centi-millionaires, which are people who own $100 million U.S. or more in cryptocurrency assets, and 28 cryptocurrency billionaires worldwide.
The surge in crypto wealth has been fueled, in part, by the new crop of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that launched earlier in 2024, states the report.
The price of Bitcoin has increased 40% this year to currently trade at $62,500 U.S.
The market capitalization of the entire cryptocurrency sector now stands at $2.30 trillion U.S., up 92% from $1.20 trillion U.S. in summer 2023.
According to a separate report from Forbes magazine, the richest cryptocurrency billionaire is Canada’s Changpeng Zhao, known as “CZ,” who is the founder and former chief executive of privately held crypto exchange Binance. He’s worth an estimated $33 billion U.S.
Zhao, who grew up in Vancouver and attended McGill University in Montreal, pled guilty to U.S. money laundering charges last November and agreed to pay a $50 million U.S. fine.
Other prominent crypto billionaires include Brian Armstrong, co-founder of the Coinbase Global (COIN) crypto exchange, Michael Saylor, co-founder of MicroStrategy (MSTR), and twin brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss.
Despite the strong rally in cryptocurrencies over the past 18 months, digital assets collectively remain below the $3 trillion U.S. market cap that they reached in November 2021 when the market last peaked.
