Degen was once a term used to describe someone who recklessly engaged in high-risk investments and trading. But now, Degen is used to describe the cool crypto dude who aped their way through the Defi market, watching updates over X and Discord, and predicting the next big change in the financial market. Initially seen in a negative light, it has now been used as a badge of honor. And some of these degens made billions of dollars from crypto?
Here are some of the most prominent Degens who amassed billions.
Do Kwon
Do Kwon, the co-founder of Terraform Labs, the company behind the TerraUSD (UST) stablecoin and its sister token Luna (LUNA). Before crypto happened to him, Kwon worked as a software engineer at Apple and Microsoft, just like any 9 -5 employee.
Terra cut its interest rates, and people started pulling their UST out. The system to convert UST into Luna was too slow and broke down, making the problem much worse. His net worth before the crash was over $3 billion.
Su Zhu and Kyle Davies
Su Zhu and Kyle Davies, the founders of the crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC). At its peak, the firm managed an estimated $10 billion in cryptocurrency assets.
From a banker working at Deutsche Bank at 25 to a crypto guru, at the age of 34, Su Zhu commanded billions in crypto assets. In 2012, he partnered with Kyle Davies, the former American baseball player of the Atlanta Braves and Kansas City Royals, for the volatile markets of cryptocurrency, together earning 3AC a reputation as a crypto titan.
Justin Sun
Justin Sun, the founder of the TRON blockchain and CEO of the crypto exchange Huobi, is also known for his extremely high-profile, highly leveraged investments in various tokens. At his peak, those risky plays pushed his net worth to an estimated $8.5 billion.
Winklevoss Twins
Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss are best remembered for their courtroom showdown with Mark Zuckerberg over Facebook’s origins. But instead of fading into tech history, the twins went full degen — dumping their settlement money into early, risky Bitcoin bets when most people still thought it was a joke. They made it big from these bets and became some of the world’s first crypto billionaires, and later co-founded crypto exchange Gemini. At their peak, their combined net worth stacked up to more than $3.7 billion.
Daniele Sestagalli
Daniele Sestagalli is the founder of Hey Anon, a decentralized AI project integrated with decentralized finance. He opined that AI in crypto is a tool to help touch more ground and build more opportunities.
He is also the founder of Wonderland, the first decentralized reserve currency protocol on the network. With an estimated net worth of $200 million, Daniele Sestagalli’s success shows his achievements as a crypto engineer and venture capitalist.
The rise of these “degens” highlights crypto’s high-risk, high-reward nature. These names show that massive success, from early visionaries like the Winklevoss Twins to leveraged traders like Justin Sun, is often built on bets that others classify as reckless.Â
