According to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index on the 11th (local time), the net assets of Binance founder Zhao Chang-feng, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, amounted to $11.6 billion, down more than $84.4 billion from $96 billion in January. Assets fell 87.9% in just over five months due to a sharp drop in major cryptocurrency prices.
The personal assets of Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the U.S., have also decreased sharply from $13.7 billion in November last year to $2.2 billion now. In a period of just over half a year, assets have plummeted by a sixth. The assets of Coinbase co-founder Fred Airum have also decreased by more than 60% this year, currently valued at $1.1 billion, Bloomberg reported.
Cryptocurrency has been on a sharp decline as the U.S. and major countries are tightening, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, inflation threats anWd supply chain situations burst at once. Bitcoin, which accounts for the largest portion of the cryptocurrency market, fell to the $34,000 range on the 8th, halving from its all-time high of $69,000 in November last year, and is retreating to the $20,000 level.
Financial authorities’ moves to collect taxes on cryptocurrency investors are also pressuring the decline in cryptocurrency. Joseph Abate, an executive at the investment bank (IB), recently released a report that cryptocurrency investors are estimated to not pay at least half of the taxes they have to pay to the U.S. National Tax Service (IRS) for cryptocurrency transactions.
In the absence of the latest official announcement by the IRS, the report cited the 2017 IRS report and estimated that the outstanding amount would reach $50 billion per year. This is about 10% of the total amount of tax unpaid in the United States. However, the report pointed out that even if transactions can be looked into on the blockchain, it will be difficult for the IRS to identify delinquents as all market participants are anonymous.
