Top 10 Crypto Investors: Traders to Follow, Biggest Wins, And Smarter Strategy

Spend any time in the crypto market and one lesson lands fast: the right guides can spare you years of avoidable mistakes. In this tour of ten notable crypto investors, we highlight people who unpack risk, show their decision-making, and stress discipline in a volatile arena where luck fades quickly.

Inside, you’ll find a snapshot of influential traders, a candidate for the largest cryptocurrency trade ever, how seasoned participants build strategies, and the places they share ideas.

Along the way, you’ll see where a practical derivatives venue like Margex fits into a toolkit as a utility, not a pitch.

For many beginners, the first requirement is a dependable exchange where an account can be opened in minutes.

Margex’s streamlined onboarding reduces friction so you can focus on learning the mechanics of digital assets instead of filling out forms.

Key Takeaways

• There is no single “best” crypto trader. Shortlists blend exchange founders, hedge fund veterans, long-horizon whales, and educators.
• Cz (Changpeng Zhao).
• Michael Saylor.
• Brian Armstrong.
• The Winklevoss twins.
• Celebrity status and big balances do not prove day-trading skill. Many well-known figures built wealth through exchanges, stablecoin businesses, or long-term holds rather than constant short-term trades.
• By net worth, crypto’s biggest names are often exchange and infrastructure builders, with some frequently estimated in the tens of billions—while early Bitcoin whales can be “bigger” by coin count even if their identities are unknown.
• Patience, not scalping, powered one of the most famous wins: an early $54,000 Bitcoin position turned into roughly $9–10 billion when about 80,000 BTC moved in July 2025.
• Top performers rely on data—blending technical analysis, fundamental research, and on-chain suites like Glassnode and CryptoQuant to monitor flows, liquidity, and market signals.
• You don’t have to mirror anyone’s portfolio. The edge lies in learning risk control, entry timing, and position sizing. Platforms such as Margex aim to make this path approachable for newcomers while offering advanced tools as you progress.

The Best Crypto Traders to Follow Right Now

Searches for who to follow often surface similar names. These aren’t just social personalities; they are co-founders, early adopters, and investors whose choices still move the cryptocurrency market.

Here is a quick tour of ten profiles that frequently appear in rankings of notable traders and investors. This list focuses on investors, founders, and market operators; “influencers” are better thought of as commentators whose audience reach can shift sentiment even when they are not actively trading.

Name	Role	Key Achievements	Net Worth/Influence
Changpeng Zhao	Exchange founder	Built Binance into a global venue; early high-conviction Bitcoin decisions	Often estimated in the tens of billions; major market and narrative influence
Michael Saylor	Corporate Bitcoin advocate	Positioned Bitcoin as a treasury asset through Strategy	Influence via corporate adoption; wealth highly correlated to Bitcoin’s price
Brian Armstrong	Exchange executive	Scaled Coinbase into a major United States on-ramp	Influence via regulation, listings, and retail access
Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss	Early investors and exchange founders	Early Bitcoin thesis; built Gemini with a compliance-first posture	Influence through custody, retail products, and public advocacy
Giancarlo Devasini	Stablecoin co-founder and exchange executive	Helped launch Tether and scale Bitfinex	Influence via stablecoin liquidity and market infrastructure
Barry Silbert	Venture-style allocator	Built Digital Currency Group and a broad crypto portfolio	Influence through capital allocation across multiple segments
Mike Novogratz	Institutional investor	Runs Galaxy Digital; frequent macro-to-crypto commentary	Influence as a bridge between traditional finance and crypto
Vitalik Buterin	Protocol builder	Co-founded Ethereum; shapes scaling and governance debates	High protocol-level influence; market impact via ideas and research
Glauber Contessoto	Retail case study	Went viral during the Dogecoin surge	Influence as a cautionary example of timing and drawdowns
Anonymous on-chain whales	Pseudonymous large holders	Large transfers and positioning visible on-chain	Holdings can be massive; identity and intent often unknown

1. Changpeng “Cz” Zhao

• Who He Is: Founder and former chief executive officer of Binance, widely viewed as one of the crypto ecosystem’s most influential operators.
• Why He Matters: In 2014, he sold his apartment for roughly 1,500 BTC at about $600 per coin—a bold move later hailed as one of the great long-term crypto bets.
• Net Worth Angle: Regularly listed near the top of crypto billionaires, with estimates in the tens of billions.

His path shows that conviction can deliver extraordinary upside—and just as much risk.

2. Michael Saylor

• Who He Is: Co-founder and executive chairman of Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy), and one of Bitcoin’s loudest macro advocates.
• Why He Matters: Rather than trade in and out, he positioned BTC as a corporate treasury reserve. Strategy holds hundreds of thousands of BTC, making his stance central to institutional debates about digital currencies.
• Net Worth Angle: His wealth is highly sensitive to Bitcoin’s price, rising and falling by billions during major cycles.

He is often cited when the conversation shifts to long-term conviction over short-term activity.

3. Brian Armstrong

• Who He Is: Co-founder and chief executive officer of Coinbase, the largest United States cryptocurrency exchange.
• Why He Matters: Running a public exchange with millions of users gives him visibility into retail behavior, regulation, and product rollouts, including stablecoins and staking.
• Net Worth: His fortune tracks Coinbase’s share price and broader crypto market cycles, a gauge of traditional finance’s belief in blockchain-based assets.

Armstrong is more executive than day trader, yet his decisions shape how every retail participant accesses markets.

4. The Winklevoss Twins (Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss)

• Who They Are: Early Bitcoin investors and the co-founders of Gemini.
• Why They Matter: They deployed part of their Facebook settlement into BTC and later built Gemini with an emphasis on security and compliance in the crypto world.

Their arc shows how early conviction plus infrastructure building can multiply wealth many times over.

5. Giancarlo Devasini

• Who He Is: Tether co-founder and longtime Bitfinex executive (now chairman) at a major derivatives exchange.
• Why He Matters: He helped launch Tether’s dollar-pegged token and oversaw Bitfinex’s growth. Tether sits at the center of global liquidity, with estimates suggesting its tokens power the majority of crypto transactions.
• Net Worth: With a substantial stake in Tether, he is frequently described as one of the industry’s wealthiest figures.

He illustrates how stablecoins and market plumbing can quietly create massive fortunes.

6. Barry Silbert

• Who He Is: Founder of Digital Currency Group, parent of Grayscale, Genesis, and other prominent crypto companies.
• Why He Matters: He manages a wide portfolio across exchanges, lenders, and DeFi protocols. When he reallocates, entire segments can feel the shift.

He is often named among the most influential institutional crypto investors.

7. Mike Novogratz

• Who He Is: Former hedge-fund manager and chief executive officer of Galaxy Digital.
• Why He Matters: Known for candid commentary on BTC, ETH, and altcoins, he discusses risk, leverage, and macro trends—useful context for viewing crypto within a broader portfolio.

He serves as a bridge between Wall Street and Web3.

8. Vitalik Buterin

• Who He Is: Ethereum co-founder and a key intellectual voice within the Web3 movement.
• Why He Matters: Though not a day trader, his writing on scaling, decentralization, and protocol design influences ETH and the wider blockchain ecosystem. When he weighs in on DeFi risk or governance, the market listens.

He proves that shaping the rules of the game can matter as much as reading charts.

9. Glauber Contessoto — The Dogecoin “Millionaire”

• Who He Is: A retail trader who went viral after turning about $188,000 into more than $3 million in Dogecoin during the 2021 meme-coin surge.
• Why He Matters: His trajectory shows how speculation can swing wildly. By holding too long, he suffered deep drawdowns—highlighting the thin line between hero and bag-holder.

He is a cautionary case where timing and meme momentum drove results more than process. In raw net worth terms, the richest “trader” figures associated with crypto are usually founders and operators—often led, in public estimates, by Changpeng Zhao.

10. Anonymous On-Chain Whales

• Who They Are: Pseudonymous addresses now join the list of “famous” traders. One profile described a “prodigy volume trader” who grew $6,800 to $1.5 million in months.
• Why They Matter: Tools that surface large transfers let observers track how whales position in BTC, ETH, and other tokens in real time.

On-chain, performance outruns personal branding.

If you want to learn from these players without blindly copying them, copy-trading features can help you observe live tactics at your own pace.

Margex lets you mirror selected strategies at your preferred size so you can study execution without handing over your entire account. It is a tool—not a shortcut.

Experienced traders can teach process and risk control, but copying entries without understanding the “why” usually turns learning into dependence.

Those are the figures most often grouped among notable crypto traders and investors.

What Was the Biggest Ever Crypto Trade?

Identifying a single “biggest” trade is difficult because global crypto markets include opaque venues and private deals. Still, several moves are widely discussed as contenders for the largest trades in digital assets.

The 80,000 BTC Whale Exit

In July 2025, on-chain analysts noticed a whale shifting roughly 80,000 BTC that had been dormant for about 14 years.

The stash—originally acquired for around $54,000 in total—was reportedly sold for approximately $9–10 billion, transforming a modest early bet into generational wealth.

The episode shows what steadfast conviction in Bitcoin can achieve when someone picks strong entries and resists panic during crashes.

Cz’s 1,500 BTC Apartment Bet

Another iconic decision came in 2014 when Cz traded an apartment for about 1,500 BTC near $600 each—under $1 million total at the time.

That position has been valued in the multi-million range many times over, depending on Bitcoin’s price—proof that simple, high-conviction choices can rival complex trading systems.

Stablecoin and Bitfinex Power Plays

Behind the curtain, Giancarlo Devasini helped shape a pivotal position: launching Tether’s dollar-pegged token and integrating it with Bitfinex’s exchange infrastructure.

Issuing a dollar-pegged token and coupling it to trading rails granted significant influence over crypto liquidity.

Here, the “trade” is not a single bet but building a machine that earns from every transaction.

Big wins tempt traders to chase 100x. Leverage can magnify results in both directions. Margex offers up to 100x, but it is optional—and for most people, small, sensible leverage beats attempts to replicate whale-sized gains overnight.

Stories like these are rare outliers. Most participants never operate at that scale—and that is perfectly acceptable.

How Top Crypto Traders Build Their Strategies

Behind every headline about a whale or billionaire is a less glamorous truth: a repeatable process.

Professionals tend to combine several pillars that work across market cycles:

• Risk management.
• Technical analysis.
• Fundamental research.
• On-chain data analysis.
• Liquidity and market structure awareness.
• Strategy diversification.

1. Risk First, Profit Second

Serious traders fixate on downside. They size positions so a streak of losses cannot wreck the portfolio—often risking 1–2% per trade, using stop-losses, or setting daily loss limits.

Survival is what lets them capture the big trend when it arrives.

2. Technical and Fundamental Work

Most pros mix charting with research to stack small edges:

• Technical Analysis: Patterns, support and resistance, volatility bands, and indicators like the relative strength index or moving averages help with timing.
• Fundamental Research: Team quality, token design, and a project’s role in DeFi or the broader Web3 stack guide conviction.
• On-Chain Data: Platforms such as Glassnode and CryptoQuant surface wallet flows, miner behavior, and network activity so traders can spot accumulation or distribution.

Analytics do not predict the future—they tilt probabilities in your favor.

3. Understanding Liquidity and Market Structure

Top traders study order-book depth, spreads, and slippage. Dashboards that flag large transfers provide clues about where big money sits.

This helps them avoid thin pairs prone to painful fills and focus on liquid markets like BTC against Tether, ETH against Tether, and other major stablecoin pairs.

4. Strategy Mix: From Hodl to Active Trading

Few professionals rely on a single approach. A balanced playbook might include:

• Holding Bitcoin and Ethereum as long-term core positions.
• Rotating selective DeFi or gaming tokens as satellite bets.
• Using futures to hedge or capture short-term swings.

Many think in “buckets”: a long-term allocation and an active trading sleeve.

Managing multiple buckets on one platform is simpler with cross margin. On Margex, cross margin lets gains in one position offset losses elsewhere within the same balance—provided you understand the risks.

For disciplined traders, this can make risk management smoother than juggling several isolated accounts.

Where the Best Crypto Traders Share Their Insights

You don’t have to guess what these people think. Many share parts of their process in public, translating complex blockchain topics so everyday users can follow along.

1. X (Twitter), Telegram, and Discord

• X remains the main arena, featuring voices who comment on markets, regulation, and blockchain trends.
• Telegram and Discord communities host real-time chats, trading journals, and collaborative strategies.
• Vitalik Buterin: Influential for Ethereum research and technical debates that can shift sentiment.
• Michael Saylor: High-visibility Bitcoin advocate whose posts often frame macro narratives.
• Changpeng Zhao: Major exchange-era operator voice; commentary can move attention and liquidity.
• Brian Armstrong: Prominent exchange executive perspective on listings, policy, and product direction.
• Arthur Hayes: Widely read market commentary on leverage, cycles, and risk appetite.
• Anthony Pompliano: Broad reach with market takes and interviews that amplify narratives.
• Cobie: Known for trader-focused commentary and real-time sentiment reads.

These channels reveal raw sentiment and how fast traders react to news. By sheer reach, Elon Musk is often the single most market-moving crypto voice on X—especially around meme-coin attention cycles.

2. YouTube and Long-Form Content

YouTube features traders and educators who stream live chart work, portfolio checkups, and explainers across Bitcoin, Ethereum, and altcoins.

The best creators clarify why a sector is strong, how to read funding rates, or what on-chain signals imply—rather than shouting targets.

3. On-Chain Dashboards and Data Platforms

Some of the sharpest insights come from dashboards, not personalities:

• Glassnode and CryptoQuant track network metrics, exchange flows, and derivatives positioning.
• Bubblemaps and similar tools visualize token movements and wallet clusters to expose concentration and adoption patterns.

These resources sit behind the scenes in most serious trading rooms.

Much of this content is consumed on the go. A mobile-friendly platform like Margex helps you connect what you see on social or video with actual positions—without waiting to get back to a desk.

FAQ

Who Is the Best Crypto Trader?

There is no single winner. Cz stands out for Binance’s rise, Michael Saylor for a long-hold Bitcoin thesis, and the Winklevoss twins or Brian Armstrong for mainstream access. The “best” depends on your aim—long-term conviction, tactical speculation, or steady growth. Study several playbooks and adapt what fits your risk profile. Margex offers 24/7 markets so you can act when opportunity appears. The right mentor is the one whose method you can follow consistently.

Who Is the Most Trusted Crypto Expert?

“Trusted” varies by specialty. Vitalik Buterin is revered for Ethereum and DeFi design, Michael Saylor for macro Bitcoin views, and Brian Armstrong or the Gemini team for regulatory and retail access. Many also follow on-chain analysts for market context. Verify claims, use non-custodial wallets for long-term storage, and choose exchanges with strict security. Margex employs cold storage and segregated accounts. Trust should be earned—and rechecked.

What Are the Top 10 Cryptos to Invest In?

“Best” depends on your risk tolerance and time horizon, but most investment shortlists emphasize liquidity, real-world adoption, developer activity, and resilience across market cycles.

• Bitcoin: The most established asset, with deep liquidity and the strongest “store of value” narrative in crypto.
• Ethereum: The dominant smart-contract network for DeFi and token ecosystems, with broad developer adoption.
• Solana: Known for high throughput and a fast-growing ecosystem of consumer and DeFi applications.
• Ripple: A long-running network focused on payments infrastructure, with high name recognition and market liquidity.
• Cardano: A research-driven smart-contract platform with an active community and long-term roadmap focus.
• Avalanche: A smart-contract platform known for subnets and flexible infrastructure design for applications.
• Chainlink: A key oracle network that helps smart contracts access real-world data and cross-chain connectivity.
• Polygon: An Ethereum scaling ecosystem aimed at cheaper, faster transactions for applications and users.
• Litecoin: A long-standing network often used as a liquidity proxy for “blue-chip” altcoin exposure.
• Dogecoin: A high-volatility asset driven by culture and attention cycles, sometimes used for speculative positioning.

What Countries Have the Most Crypto Investors?

Country	Estimated Crypto Investors	Supporting Context
India	100 million+	Large population base and high retail participation across major exchanges
United States	40–50 million	Strong access through regulated on-ramps and broad investor awareness
Nigeria	20–30 million	High grassroots adoption and active peer-to-peer usage
Vietnam	15–20 million	High penetration among retail users and strong interest in on-chain markets
Indonesia	15–20 million	Large retail base and fast-growing exchange participation
Brazil	15–20 million	Growing mainstream access and fintech-driven adoption
Philippines	10–15 million	Retail trading activity and strong engagement with crypto apps
Pakistan	10–15 million	Rapid retail growth and strong interest in mobile-first finance
Turkey	10–15 million	High retail participation and frequent crypto market engagement
United Kingdom	8–10 million	High awareness and steady retail participation via major platforms

Which Companies Invest the Most in Bitcoin?

Company	Approximate Bitcoin Held	Notes on Exposure
Strategy	200,000+ BTC	Largest widely known corporate holder; treasury strategy centered on Bitcoin
Marathon Digital	20,000+ BTC	Mining-linked holdings that can change with production and treasury policy
Tesla	About 10,000 BTC	High-profile corporate position; can shift with treasury decisions
Block	About 8,000 BTC	Bitcoin-focused product strategy alongside a corporate treasury position
Riot Platforms	8,000+ BTC	Mining-linked holdings that fluctuate with sales and accumulation

Who Is the Biggest Investor in Bitcoin?

The largest known holder is widely believed to be Satoshi Nakamoto (a pseudonym), with estimates commonly around 1 million BTC spread across early-mined addresses. Because the identity is unknown and the coins have largely remained unmoved, this figure remains an estimate rather than a confirmed, actively managed portfolio.

Among public, identifiable entities, the biggest exposure by disclosed corporate holdings is typically associated with Strategy, which has accumulated hundreds of thousands of BTC.

Best Crypto Trading App: Margex

The best app balances usability, transparency, and features. It should list your preferred pairs, show clear fees, and make order management simple. Margex specializes in perpetual futures with an interface designed for fast execution. The best choice is the one you can use confidently under pressure.

Best Crypto Trading Platform: Margex

Preferences differ: some traders use decentralized exchanges, others prefer centralized liquidity. Margex offers BTC- and ETH-based derivatives, a protected matching engine, Bitcoin collateral options, and low fees that reward active users. The right platform aligns with your strategy, tools, and comfort level.