Jean-Louis van der Velde
Source of wealth: Cryptocurrency
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Biography
JL van der Velde is the former CEO of crypto firm Tether and the CEO of its sister company, Bitfinex.
Van der Velde left the Netherlands in 1985 to attend university in Taiwan and subsequently cofounded several IT and tech startups in Asia prior to joining Tether.
The biggest stablecoin issuer, Tether generated more than $10 billion in profit in 2025, largely from interest on the reserves backing USDT.
He owns an estimated 19% of the business.
Perspective on their fortune
Gold
Everyday luxury
A Jean-Louis van der Velde's fortune is equivalent to 256 of gold, but this may be difficult to value, as we don't usually have a handful of gold bars in our piggy bank.
A standard gold ring typically weighs between 4 and 7 grams. Let's say this one weighs 5 grams. It's usually 18k gold.
Based on today's gold price (not taking into account the jeweler's fee, shipping, or anything else), that gold ring would be worth $556.3
Jean-Louis van der Velde could buy 68,308,475 gold rings. That's a lot of fingers and a lot of gifts!!
And if the number of rings is difficult to visualize, all these rings would need 12 trucks to transport them, But we can be almost certain that Jean-Louis van der Velde will have enough left over to pay for the gas for those trucks.
Health
The price of life
Let's compare Jean-Louis van der Velde's fortune with the healthcare spending of a huge country
Jean-Louis van der Velde could fund the entire healthcare system of DR Congo with a population of over 105,800,000 of inhabitants for approximately 17.1 years.
But even if we compare their fortune to that of a rich country
At the other extreme, Jean-Louis van der Velde could cover the health expenditure of Luxembourg, considered the world's most heavily invested health system, for 7.6 years
Education
Buying the future
Lowest education spending
Jean-Louis van der Velde could assume the entire cost of the education system of Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa, with more than 243,000,000 inhabitants for 11.2 years.
Highest education spending
But not only could he assume the cost of a poor country, Luxembourg is considered the country with the highest per capita investment in education in the world, Jean-Louis van der Velde could pay for it in full for 15.2 years.
Research
The monopoly of progress
Lowest research spending
Jean-Louis van der Velde could fully fund the state research budget of Pakistan, the fifth most populous country in the world with more than 260,000,000 of inhabitants, for 64.0 years.
Highest research spending
But even if we compare the total wealth of Jean-Louis van der Velde with Israel, the country that currently invests the most per capita in research in the world, it could assume the total cost of the system for 1.4 years.
Financial Assets
Financial assets information not available.
Monthly wealth history
Fortune comparison
Historical data not available for comparison