Just as blockchain technology is defined by its decentralized structure, the community of crypto enthusiasts is also vast and diverse, with distributed users around the world. There is a vast number of people who own small amounts of cryptocurrencies — particularly since 2017 — and, conversely, there are a few people who have put millions into crypto.
These people are often the ones who have hailed cryptocurrencies from the very beginning, and they have put their money where their mouth is. Even though the market cap of the crypto industry has dropped significantly in the past 12 months, these big players are still very much in the game.
Here are 10 investors (with the Winklevosses, of course, counting as 2!) who have invested millions in crypto.
10 Investors Who Have Multi-Million Dollar Investments in Crypto
Mike Novogratz
Mike Novogratz is a former hedge fund manager and partner in Goldman Sachs who ventured into the crypto space by starting a crypto fund known as Galaxy Digital Holdings Limited. While the CEO of JP Morgan Jamie Dimon bashed Bitcoin in 2017, Novogratz openly lent his support to cryptocurrencies.
Novogratz has put so much money into cryptocurrencies that in 2017 he announced that 30% of his net worth was in crypto assets. Plus, he raised $250 million in funds for Galaxy Digital to invest in cryptocurrencies, ICOs, and other companies in the crypto ecosystem.
Recently, Novogratz increased his personal stake in Galaxy Digital to 80%. This shows his unwavering commitment to cryptocurrency and his belief in their prospects in the long term.
Tim Draper
Tim Draper is a venture capitalist investor. He is famous in the crypto space for purchasing 2,000 of the 50,000 bitcoins auctioned off by the U.S. Marshall office in 2014, after they had been seized from Silk Road.
Since then, he has become a crypto evangelist, investing in various crypto projects.
Despite the market downtrend, Draper, like other Bitcoin investors, remains confident about the future of cryptocurrencies. He is also known for his prediction of Bitcoin hitting $10,000, which came true in 2017.
‘He has also predicted that the price of Bitcoin might hit $250,000 in 2022.
Barry Silbert
Barry Silbert is the founder and CEO of Digital Currency Group, a company focused on launching and investing in promising companies in the crypto industry.
Silbert became well-known in the crypto world when he purchased the remaining 48,000 of 50,000 bitcoins from the U.S. Marshall Silk Road auction. That purchase cost about $16.8 million in 2014, but is now worth over $168 million.
Silbert continues to be active in the cryptocurrency world, giving advice, investment, and insight into several projects and companies, including Ethereum Classic and Kraken. He is considered one of the top blockchain experts to follow on Twitter.
Dan Morehead
Dan Morehead is the CEO and co-CIO of Pantera Capital which is known as one of the big-name investment companies in the crypto world.
Some of the notable crypto companies funded by Pantera include Bakkt, Abra, Blockfolio, Brave, Bitstamp, Ripple, and Zcash.
Pantera Capital manages over $500 million invested in the crypto industry. Morehead founded this firm in 2003, and it became one of the first investment firms to start investing in cryptocurrencies.
Olaf Carlson-Wee
Olaf Carlson-Wee is the founder of Polychain Capital, and he is known for turning about $4 million into over $300 million under a year.
Against the advice of his college advisor, he wrote his college thesis on Bitcoin and plunged most of his savings into cryptocurrencies. He was the first employee hired by Coinbase (his $50,000 salary was paid entirely in Bitcoin), and he went on to establish his own crypto fund in 2016.
Carlson-Wee’s firm, Polychain Capital, now has about $1 billion under management, though it has been heavily hit by the bear market.
Regarded as a real crypto “OG” (which means Original Gangster, referring to how he saw Bitcoin’s potential from the very beginning and went all in before it became popular), he is listed in Fortune’s The Ledger 40 under 40, which names individuals transforming the world of technology and finance.
Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss
Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss made their claim to fame when they took an $11 million payout from their court case against Mark Zuckerberg over who was the true originator of Facebook. They then made headlines when they invested that payout into Bitcoin, becoming billionaires when Bitcoin spiked in 2017 (although with the current market, it is estimated that the twins’ crypto-assets amount to a mere $400 million).
In 2015, they became household names in the crypto industry when they founded the Gemini crypto exchange.
In September 2018, they created their own stablecoin known as the Gemini dollar. Available on the Gemini exchange, the Gemini dollar is a stablecoin pegged 1:1 with the U.S. dollar.
Ari David Paul
Ari David Paul is the CIO and co-founder of BlockTower Capital, a company which specializes in professional crypto trading and portfolio management. BlockTower manages over $130 million in digital assets, taking long and short positions on several cryptocurrencies.
Paul is quite outspoken on Twitter, sharing his thoughts on the trends and analysis of blockchain technology and crypto markets. He has been a source of insight on the position of institutional investors to crypto, as can be seen in the Twitter thread below.
2/ there’s kind of three basic views of crypto by institutions: a. VC mindset – is there value creation we can capture with early stage investment? b. Passive Bitcoin or index exposure – is this going to be digital gold or a portfolio hedge?
— Ari Paul (@AriDavidPaul) February 1, 2019
Anthony Pompliano
Anthony Pompliano, known in the crypto community as Pomp, is a founder and partner at Morgan Creek Digital.
Morgan Creek Digital is an investment firm focusing on creating opportunities for institutional investors to invest in blockchain technology and digital assets. The firm is backed by the multi-billion dollar asset manager, Morgan Creek Capital Management.
Pomp has been vocal on the prospects of Bitcoin and blockchain technology. He has called Bitcoin the best-performing asset of the decade and also tipped that Facebook will build the most useful product in crypto.
In December 2018, he made an open challenge of a wager of $1 million that Bitcoin will outperform the S&P 500 in 10 years. This mirrors the famous challenge of investment veteran Warren Buffett, who insists that nothing ever beats the market in a 10-year run.
Recently, 2 U.S. pension funds joined his firm as clients, a step which he lauded on Twitter.
This morning our team at Morgan Creek Digital announced a new $40 million crypto venture fund anchored by two public pensions.
The institutions aren’t coming.
They’re already here. 🚀
— Pomp 🌪 (@APompliano) February 12, 2019
Michael Arrington
Michael Arrington is the founder and former co-editor of TechCrunch.
Since leaving the tech publication, he has set his eyes on the blockchain world. In November 2017, he announced that he was starting a $100 million cryptocurrency hedge fund. The investment is mostly in Ripple’s XRP and other blockchain startups.
Arrington agrees that blockchain investments, especially at the early stages, constitute a high risk. Nevertheless, he has invested millions into the industry through his Arrington XRP Capital. He is also a notable speaker at tech and crypto conferences.
Final Thoughts
The crypto industry consists of several people who have invested millions in hopes of reaping big returns in the long term. Even with the bear market, these investors are still unwaveringly optimistic about the future they perceive for cryptocurrencies.
Cryptocurrencies are here to stay, and there is no doubt that they will further evolve with time. While some of these big investors in crypto are considered lucky because of the timing of their investments, it is still not too late to invest in cryptocurrencies.
