(Bloomberg) -- Vitalik Buterin, one of the most influential people in crypto, says he's not a digital-currency billionaire.
In a Twitter post, Buterin, who helped start the world's second-largest cryptocurrency, Ether, and continues to drive the development of underlying technology, said he never personally held more than 0.9 percent of the cryptocurrency, which has a market cap of $20.1 billion. Buterin posted a link Wednesday to his digital wallet, which currently holds 365,003 Ether, valued at about $73 million, and includes gifts and charity donations. Buterin said he has other wallets, "but they're quite small relatively speaking."
Buterin was responding to a tweet from New York University professor Nouriel Roubini, who accused him and another Ether co-founder, Joe Lubin, of becoming billionaires by creating some Ether coins for themselves before releasing the cryptocurrency for others to use. Lubin hasn't responded to the tweet, while Buterin said, “I'm pretty sure there are no criminal laws" against the practice, called pre-mining.
@VitalikButerin was the ring-leader - together with Joe Lubin - of the criminal pre-mining sale/scam that created Ether. They stole 75% of the Ether supply and became instant "billionaires" of fake wealth. https://t.co/d3ltYuce4u
October 10, 2018Read More: Bitcoin Bear Roubini Bashes Crypto in Face-Off at Senate Hearing
The accusations fly as, in most cases, creators of cryptocurrencies end up with huge portions of the coins, and can hold much sway over their price. Ether is down 86 percent since its January high, according to CoinMarketCap.com. In a February story, Forbes estimated Buterin's net worth at up to $500 million, much lower than that of Ripple Labs co-founder Chris Larsen, for example, who was worth up to $8 billion.
To contact the reporter on this story: Olga Kharif in Portland at okharif@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Nick Turner at nturner7@bloomberg.net, ;Jeremy Herron at jherron8@bloomberg.net, Dave Liedtka, Andrew Dunn
©2018 Bloomberg L.P.
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