They were the radiant face of the rise of cryptocurrencies in 2021.
Some saw them as the symbol of the advent of alternative finance capable of competing with traditional finance. They were basically the new bosses of the "New Wall Street".
The crypto craze had indeed made many millionaires and billionaires but they were in their own league: Changpeng Zhao, founder of Binance, the largest crypto exchange by volume, Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of crypto trading platform FTX.com, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, cofounders of Gemini, Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam, cofounders of Coinbase (COIN) and finally Mike Novogratz, the former Goldman Sachs banker turned crypto evangelist.
Eight months after the Crypto euphoria that had made them even richer, they are watching helplessly as the billions of dollars they had made disappear.
Changpeng Zhao had a fortune of $95.8 billion on paper on November 9, 2021, the day before Bitcoin's all-time high. As of June 13, it was only estimated at $10.2 billion, according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Basically, he lost $85.6 billion in eight months.
Armstrong's fortune was estimated at $13.7 billion in November, it has decreased by $11.6 billion and is now only at $2.1 billion.
The Winklevoss Brothers Not Too Impacted
Samuel Bankman-Fried saw his fortune decrease from $15.1 billion to $8.9 billion currently. That fortune is down $6.2 billion.
Novogratz, who leads Galaxy Digital, saw his net wealth shrink from $6.4 billion to $2.1 billion, while Ehrsam's fell from $4.5 billion to $2.1 billion, down $2.4 billion.
The Winklevoss brothers are the ones who are doing the best. Their fortunes have shrunk just $800 million each to $3 billion each.
The twin brothers accused Mark Zuckerberg of having stolen their idea of a social network to create Facebook. They used part of their millions of dollars settlement to buy bitcoin and launch Gemini, one of the most popular cryptocurrency exchanges that allow users to buy and sell crypto.
The Winklevoss brothers have not yet posted a message on Twitter to comment on the Bitcoin crash. They are on tour with Mars-Junction, their rock band.
"Cool as a cucumber," Tyler tweeted on June 13 about their performance. That same day, Bitcoin fell by more than 15%.
As for Cameron, he wrote: "Haven't been on here in a minute, what'd I miss?"
Cryptocurrency prices have been plummeting for several weeks. But this tumble accelerated on Monday: Bitcoin, the king of cryptocurrencies thus is trading to its lowest levels for 18 months around $22,000, compared to $ 69,000 last November.
The cryptocurrency market has lost over $2.1 trillion since its November highs, according to data firm CoinGecko.
