Is Vitalik Buterin The First Casualty of The Crypto Market Crash?
Table of contents
Ether is the second most popular cryptocurrency according to market capitalization. It is second only to Bitcoin, which has lost nearly half of its value in the past six months. On May 3rd, the price of one Ether coin surpassed $3,300, making Vitalik Buterin, co-creator of the blockchain platform Ethereum, a billionaire. When Ether's value increased to $4,300 on May 12th, its estimation was worth about $1.4 billion. According to Forbes, the current net worth of Vitalik Buterin after the recent crypto market crash is $850 million.
Who Apart From Vitalik Buterin Are The Other Casualties Of The Crypto Crash?
After Bitcoin's value increased to $59,423 per coin at midnight on May 10th, the cryptocurrency's value began a dramatic decline, falling to 36% in the following nine days. As a result of this, the assets of most crypto billionaires diminished in value. For example, according to Forbes estimates, 12 billionaires whose fortunes were built on cryptocurrency fell by $62.3 billion to $46.8 billion at 3 p.m. E.T. on May 18. Different billionaires have become casualties of these crashes. Here are some of them:
Sam Bankman
Sam Bankman Fried has the most significant loss (in terms of dollars). At 29, he founded the Quantitative Crypto Trading firm Alameda Research. Bankman-Fried, a former Wall Street trader, had crypto worth $16.7 billion when Bitcoin peaked in May, but his net worth dropped drastically to $11.5 billion in mid-May. He was one of the most recent self-made billionaires to appear on Forbes' list of billionaires. He increased his net worth by launching FTX, a cryptocurrency derivatives exchange, in 2019. FTX equity and tokens make up the majority of his fortune. However, due to the crypto crash, the value of FTX tokens has dropped by 37% since May 10th.
The Winklevoss Twins
The Winklevoss Twins also lost a portion of their fortune. Their net worth dropped by approximately $900 million earlier last month. As a result, the estimation of their net worth is about $2.9 billion after losing up to 24 percent to the crypto crash. In 2012, the twins used a portion of the $65 million settlement from the Facebook lawsuit to purchase Bitcoin, and in 2014, they launched the cryptocurrency exchange Gemini. Gemini now processes up to $200 million in trades per day.
Michael Saylor
Michael Saylor, a former dot-com billionaire who rebranded himself as a Bitcoin investor, was the biggest loser. In October, Saylor, a former rocket scientist who received an Air Force scholarship to attend MIT, announced that he had purchased 17,732 bitcoins for $175 million. He directed MicroStrategy, his company's business analytics software firm, to invest in Bitcoin through 2020 by purchasing 70,784 bitcoins for $1.1 billion. The company was worth $3.3 billion at its peak, but its net worth has dropped by 45 percent in the last few days to $1.8 billion. However, the crypto billionaires of the world are still significantly wealthier than they were a few months ago, despite the recent decline.
The combined fortune of the twelve billionaires is $46,8 billion. Due to the springtime surge in cryptocurrency prices, this is a $37.3 billion increase from March 5, when Forbes estimated net worths for 2021 on the World's Billionaires list.
Reasons For The Crypto Market Crash
The beginning of 2022 has been challenging for cryptocurrencies. Since the beginning of the year, Bitcoin (BTC) has lost roughly 40 percent of its value, while Ethereum (ETH) and Binance Coin (BNB) have both lost up to 48 percent. They are the top three circulating cryptocurrencies in terms of market capitalization, excluding the USD-pegged stablecoins Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC). However, cryptocurrencies have experienced significant declines before. Once again, between mid-March and mid-May 2022, cryptocurrencies experienced a precipitous decline. Bitcoin dropped by more than 40 percent.
Despite the market's volatility, many investors continue to be interested in cryptocurrencies. The following are potential causes of a cryptocurrency market crash:
Lack of liquidity in the cryptocurrency markets
When leveraged investors liquidate a substantial portion of their assets, the crypto markets face a primary liquidity issue. In contrast to the stock market, buyers are not always eager to acquire empty coins. This is a significant reason why most cryptocurrency crashes occur on weekends. When there are a large number of coins available for purchase, there are fewer buyers.
Crypto Regulations
When China banned cryptocurrency mining on June 20, 2021, miners were forced to relocate to more miner-friendly jurisdictions. The fact that "the network hash rate decreased significantly" resulted in consequences for crypto investors. The term "hash rate" refers to the number of calculations performed per second in cryptography. These calculations allow miners to mine coins. Therefore, when prices decrease, the hash rate will decrease as well. Theoretically, this statement is also false. This is because mining firms are compensated in cryptocurrency. However, this could also imply that if governments regulate cryptocurrency mining, the price of cryptocurrencies could drop.
Crypto Influencers
Investors in cryptocurrencies should be cognizant of the fact that "crypto advocates and key influencers can tweet and cause a capital inflow" in the case of public sentiment. This was the case regarding Elon Musk's endorsement of Dogecoin. Twitter can also have an adverse effect. This is because the significance of this asset class is dependent on investor sentiment and lack of liquidity. For investors, stablecoins are a potential alternative to this. When the market fluctuates, this currency allows traders to enter and exit crypto-related positions quickly.
Conclusion
The price of Bitcoin has fallen drastically over the past month, causing a drop in the price of other popular cryptocurrencies, such as Ether and Luna. The price crash has resulted in many of the top players in the cryptocurrency market losing their fortune, including Vitalik Buterin, who recently revealed that his current net worth after the recent crypto market crash is $850 million. Is Vitalik Buterin the first casualty of the cryptocurrency market crash? Maybe yes. But he's certainly not the last!