# The On-Chain Rich List: Satoshi’s $115 B and the Private-Key Ghosts

By [NFT](https://paragraph.com/@web3-nft) · 2025-11-24

private-key

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**#1 Satoshi Nakamoto – US $115 billion**  
Spread across 22 000 addresses mined in 2009-2010, the creator’s untouched stack is still the largest individual fortune on any blockchain. Whether the name tags one person or a group, the coins have never moved—an $115 B sleeping volcano that could shake markets if it ever stirs.

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**#2 Justin Sun – US $1.9 billion on-chain (est. US $5–6 B total)**  
The TRON founder and BitTorrent CEO keeps a colourful basket of tokens visible on-chain. His recent tussle with Trump-linked World Liberty Financial—after buying a large WLFI tranche and then being black-listed for sending $9 M of tokens to an exchange—shows how political DeFi has become.

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**#3 Rain Lohmus – US $886 million… and lost**  
The Estonian banker who co-founded LHV Bank bought 250 000 ETH in the 2014 ICO for roughly $75 k. He then misplaced the wallet seed. The coins sit on-chain, immovable, a permanent reminder that “not your keys” still means “not your coins” even for early believers.

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**#4 Vitalik Buterin – US $867 million**  
Ethereum’s co-founder holds mostly ETH, plus a museum of meme-coins (SHIB, ELON, et al.) that projects airdrop to his public address for free publicity. He has donated large chunks before; what remains still ranks him among the top living individuals on any chain.

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**#5 James Howells – US $838 million under a dump**  
The Welsh IT tech mined 8 000 BTC on a laptop in 2010. In 2013 he accidentally threw out the hard drive. Newport City Council has repeatedly refused his requests to excavate the landfill. The coins are spendable—just not by him.

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**#6 Stefan Thomas – US $734 million with two tries left**  
The German-born coder was paid 7 002 BTC in 2011 for making an explainer video. The password to his IronKey USB is forgotten; eight failed attempts are logged, two remain before the device self-erases. Each guess is literally worth billions.

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**#7 Clifton Collins – US $629 million seized… and unusable**  
An Irish grower who funneled drug profits into 6 000 BTC around 2012. After arrest, the paper key—hidden inside a fishing rod—was lost. The Irish state “owns” the coins but cannot move them; they remain unspendable in confiscated wallets.

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**#8 Owen Gunden – US $561 million (and falling)**  
Early Mt. Gox and Tradehill arbitrageur. After years of silence he recently shipped 1 800 BTC ($200 M) to Kraken, probably to cash. His rank drops as coins hit exchange hot-wallets.

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**#9 Mao Shihang (DiscusFish) – US $275 million**  
Founder of China’s first mining pool F2Pool and custody start-up Cobo. Holdings span BTC, ETH and assorted altcoins—earned from a decade of building the plumbing others trade on.

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**#10 Patricio Worthalter – US $226 million**  
The Argentine creator of POAP (Proof-of-Attendance Protocol) turned conference badges into an NFT standard. His wealth is diversified across ETH and governance tokens accrued while bootstrapping Web3’s “event layer.”

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**Alumni of the Top 10**

*   James Fickel – 57 000 ETH ($203 M) after a $400 k bet in 2016; still holding despite a $43 M ETH/BTC spread trade gone wrong last year.
    
*   Stefan George – Gnosis co-founder, $106 M in GNO and Safe ecosystem tokens that power multisig infrastructure for half of DeFi.
    

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**Moral of the Ledger**  
The richest addresses on Earth are ghost towns for some and treasure islands for others. Satoshi’s silence, Lohmus’s lapse, Howells’s garbage—each entry is a case study in asymmetric upside and single-point-of-failure downside. In crypto you can be a billionaire at breakfast and a cautionary tale by dinner; the only thing more valuable than the private key is the backup of the private key.

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*Originally published on [NFT](https://paragraph.com/@web3-nft/the-on-chain-rich-list-satoshis-dollar115-b-and-the-private-key-ghosts)*
