As the most successful cryptocurrency of 2017, Ripple made quite a few people rich. Among them is the company’s co-founder: Chris Larsen.
Larsen was the company’s CEO before stepping down in November 2016. However, he continues to serve as Executive Chairman. He also owns 5.19 billion XRP, which, in conjunction with his 17% stake in Ripple, brings his net worth to $37.3 billion—according to Monday’s data, when Ripple was trading at around $2.39. (Source: “Meet The Crypto Billionaires Getting Rich From Ripple’s XRP,” Forbes, January 2, 2018.)
However, with Ripple now trading near $3.75, Larsen’s net worth is closer to $58.5 billion.
That’s not a misprint, dear reader.
This calculation shows that Larsen is wealthier than Michael Bloomberg, Larry Ellison, Michael Dell, and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. He’s even neck-and-neck with Mark Zuckerberg.
However, Larsen is extremely charitable with his money.
He’s donated huge sums of XRP to worthy causes, meaning that we might be overestimating his wealth. But since this is true of many billionaires, I’ve included the numbers sans adjustments. It’s undeniably interesting to know how much his contribution is worth.
Ripple Price Chart:
Just consider what the market is saying here: that the founder of Ripple—a six-year-old company with incredible prospects, to be sure—is somehow creating equal value to the founders of Google, one of the most powerful institutions on the planet.
It seems insane to make such a comparison.
And yet, through some twisted logic, the market might actually have a case for driving up XRP prices to the point where this becomes possible.
After all, Google’s value lies primarily in its Internet search monopoly. Similarly, Ripple is positioned to replace SWIFT as the monopolist in international payments, giving it the springboard to do for blockchain what Google did for the web.
What does that mean?
Simply, that Ripple could operate the pipelines of international value transfers in the same way that Google operates the pipelines of content discovery. By extension, that could mean Larsen deserves his $58.5 billion fortune. Only time will tell.