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2024 has seen Bitcoin and many other coins hit new highs amid the hope that the Trump administration will loosen the shackles in 2025 and beyond, allowing the space to grow to unfathomable heights. While many have thoroughly enjoyed 2024, others have had a shocker, and it’s that time of the year when we get to separate those tanning themselves on a tropical beach from those booking a cheap sunbed.
Winners
Michael Saylor
The MicroStrategy CEO was on our list of winners in 2023 over his $2 billion paper profits from his company’s Bitcoin bet, and he has only solidified his place this year. This year, the company took its Bitcoin holdings to over 330,000 at an average cost of just shy of $50,000. So, while others were laughing at him, Saylor was laughing all the way to the bank; at the time of publication, he is sitting on a paper profit of around $15 billion.
There aren’t many companies that can boast that kind of profit margin by doing nothing but buying one asset and having the conviction of a prizefighter on the big night. Saylor has been a figure of ridicule for many outside the Bitcoin space for essentially hedging the future of his company on the cryptocurrency, but it is clear that he has played the right cards…so far.
MtGox Customers
They waited ten years to see it, but many MtGox customers finally received their slice of what was left after the exchange capitulated in 2014. Cash and some bitcoin payments finally found their way to beleaguered customers after a decade of legal battles and procedural delays.
Customers only received 20% of what they held on the platform at the time of its collapse, but anyone holding at least 55 bitcoins in 2014 is now a millionaire. More could come their way if MtGox manages to defeat CoinLab in a Japanese lawsuit, with billions set aside after the company sued MtGox for breach of contract.
Changpeng Zhao
10 years? 25 years? 50 years? No one quite knew how bad things were going to be for Binance co-founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao after he and his company pleaded guilty to a multitude of charges laid at their door by the U.S. Department of Justice, handing over $4.5 billion in the process. It is for this reason that Zhao was on our ‘losers’ list, as we, like he, feared the worst.
In the end, somehow, Zhao was sentenced to only four months in a minimum-security prison, much to the chagrin of his detractors. To compound this, Zhao was released a few days early, at the end of September, having since been removed from his position as CEO. Zhao is never allowed to hold a position of power at Binance, but he is still a major shareholder as the exchange maintains its spot as the crypto space’s most popular exchange.
Losers
Gary Gensler
The SEC chair was on our losers’ list last year following his agency’s defeats against Grayscale and Ripple, the Prometheum debacle, and his generally atrocious performance in House committee meetings that left him facing petitions from Congressmen to not just sack him but also remove his entire position.
The SEC has sent out more Wells Notices than Christmas cards this year, maintaining its stance of crippling those it refuses to negotiate with ahead of time, and with Donald Trump’s ascension to the White House guaranteed following November’s election, Gensler’s days are almost certainly numbered. Trump has already named Gensler as someone standing in the way of crypto development in the US, and it seems inevitable that he will be a casualty of the new administration.
And not a moment too soon.
Tigran Gambaryan
Gambaryan, Binance’s compliance chief, is on this list through no fault of his own. Gambaryan endured a nightmare year at the hands of Nigerian authorities who arrested him and Binance’s Africa chief, Nadeem Anjarwalla, in February on trumped-up tax evasion charges that had nothing to do with the pair.
Anjarwalla escaped custody, which only made things worse for Gambaryan, who was moved into Kuje prison in Abuja, where his health deteriorated significantly, suffering from conditions such as a herniated disc, malaria, and chest infections. Despite his declining health, the Federal High Court in Abuja denied bail requests, putting him on trial.
Nigerian authorities finally dropped the charges in October, allowing Tigran to end his Nigerian nightmare and return home for treatment.
