Ripple’s Chris Larsen rockets into global top‑200 billionaires club

Chris Larsen just broke into the global top‑200 richest people, and it happened ￰0￱ move came after the ￰1￱ and Wall Street shifted their tone toward ￰2￱ Securities and Exchange Commission ended its five‑year lawsuit against Ripple back in August, clearing a major weight off the ￰3￱ this Wednesday in San Francisco, investors tied to Fortress Investment Group and Citadel Securities put $500 million into Ripple, valuing the company at $40 billion, according to ￰4￱ timing was almost ￰5￱ new valuation plus a roughly 9% rise in XRP this year pushed Chris into billionaire territory with a net worth of $15.3 billion, placing him among the world’s richest for the first ￰6￱ of that wealth comes from his 18% stake in Ripple and his 2.7 billion XRP tokens worth about $6.3 billion as of ￰7￱ also holds $1.8 billion in real estate and assorted ￰8￱ breakdown was confirmed directly to ￰9￱ in San Francisco and raised in Cupertino, Chris is 64, and has been building companies since the 1990s, long before crypto ￰10￱ went to San Jose State at first to study ￰11￱ switched to business, transferred to San Francisco State, and graduated with accounting and business administration degrees in ￰12￱ then worked as an auditor at Chevron before earning an MBA from ￰13￱ companies and building wealth The first time Chris made real noise was in 1996 when he co‑founded E‑Loan, the first platform to show consumer credit scores ￰14￱ sold it nine years later to Popular ￰15￱ $300 ￰16￱ that, he created Prosper Marketplace, a group‑lending platform partly inspired by his wife’s background in ￰17￱ stepped away from Prosper in 2012.

A few months later, he co‑founded OpenCoin, which became ￰18￱ company focused on cross‑border payments using ￰19￱ led it as CEO until 2016, then moved into the chairman ￰20￱ work now also stretches into local ￰21￱ his wife, Lyna Lam, he supports Cambodian community projects, climate efforts, food access, and San Francisco’s neighborhood ￰22￱ pair founded the A Khmer Buddhist Foundation and are helping fund a new temple in San Jose. Locally, Chris has been politically active for ￰23￱ funded a private camera network in San Francisco to combat property crime and recently gave $9.4 million to help the city build a real‑time police operations center.

Ripple, meanwhile, is not going public anytime soon, as was reported by ￰24￱ asked Wednesday, Ripple President Monica Long said, “No plan, no timeline.” Crypto markets shake while fortunes shift While Chris climbs the billionaire rankings, crypto trading is showing the opposite ￰25￱ Hyperliquid, one wallet opened two heavy short positions against Bitcoin and XRP totaling $140 ￰26￱ trader is now up $3.1 million in about nine ￰27￱ wallet was funded with $7 million USDC routed through an Arbitrum wallet that redeemed from a zero address, making the source hard to ￰28￱ are already speculating insider ￰29￱ reminds traders of the alleged “Trump insider whale” who reportedly made almost $200 million by shorting before the $19 billion liquidation crash on October ￰30￱ linked to that wallet denied having inside info, even though the shorts lined up exactly before former President Trump’s tariff threat tanked ￰31￱ has been ￰32￱ dropped 7.4% on Tuesday in New York to $96,794, its first fall below $100,000 since ￰33￱ puts it more than 20% below last month’s record ￰34￱ dropped up to 15%, and several altcoins lost 50% this ￰35￱ traders stayed sidelined after the October liquidation ￰36￱ interest in Bitcoin futures is still ￰37￱ though funding rates look favorable, few are stepping back ￰38￱ is up less than 10% this year, trailing stocks and failing to hedge ￰39￱ Bybit now and claim a $50 bonus in minutes