Chris Larsen
- Net worth $8.4 billion
- Status -
- Country United States
- Source(-s) of wealth Entrepreneur, Investor
How much is Chris Larsen Worth? Chris Larsen Net Worth in 2026
Chris Larsen’s net worth is estimated at $8.4 billion as of November 2026. The co-founder and executive chairman of Ripple owns more XRP through his Ripple shares than he holds in his own wallets: by our math, his slice of the company’s token pile is worth more than twice his personal stash. He ranks seventh in our 2026 top 10 of crypto’s richest billionaires worldwide.
| Net worth | $8.4 billion (estimate, range $7 billion to $12 billion) |
|---|---|
| Born | 1960, San Francisco, California |
| Age | 66 |
| Country | United States |
| Known for | Co-founding Ripple, E-Loan and Prosper |
| Main income sources | Ripple shares, XRP tokens, past XRP sales |
| XRP in his wallets | About 2.5 billion tokens (August 2026) |
How much is Chris Larsen worth in 2026?
We put Chris Larsen at about $8.4 billion, inside a range of $7 billion to $12 billion. The low end assumes later funding rounds cut his stake to about 12 percent; the high end values 17 percent at the $50 billion buyback price with no discount. About 60 percent of that is his stake in Ripple, a private company whose shares change hands rarely and at prices nobody publishes in full. Another third is XRP sitting in wallets attributed to him, which moves every minute the market is open. The rest is cash he banked from selling tokens near past peaks.
Public estimates disagree for two reasons. Some value his Ripple shares at the roughly $50 billion price of a March 2026 buyback without any discount, and some count his tokens at prices from earlier in the year. XRP was trading at $1.10 on November 9, 2026, well below the $3.66 peak of July 2025, so any figure struck before the slide runs high.
How we got to $8.4 billion
| Source | Our estimate | What it rests on |
|---|---|---|
| Ripple shares | $5.1 billion | A 17 percent stake, the figure reported in January 2018, at the $40 billion value of Ripple’s November 2025 funding round is $6.8 billion. We take 25 percent off because the shares are private and hard to sell, which leaves $5.1 billion. The discount is our assumption. |
| XRP tokens | $2.75 billion | About 2.5 billion XRP in wallets attributed to him in August 2026, at $1.10 per token on November 9, 2026, is $2.75 billion. Wallet attribution comes from on-chain analysts, not from him. |
| Cash from past XRP sales | $0.5 billion | An on-chain analyst counted $764 million of realized profit since January 2018. Larsen got his tokens at XRP’s creation, so the whole sum is taxable gain; at an assumed 30 percent tax he keeps about $535 million. We assume the cash from earlier sales went on living costs and giving. |
| Total | $8.4 billion | $5.1 billion plus $2.75 billion plus $0.535 billion is $8.385 billion, which rounds to $8.4 billion. |
Ripple’s own token pile, and what it means for him
Ripple held about 34.8 billion XRP in wallets attributed to it in August 2026. At $1.10, that pile is worth $38.3 billion. Our calculation: that is 96 percent of the $40 billion investors paid in November 2025, so at today’s token price almost the whole company value is covered by the coins in its own treasury, and the payments business comes nearly free.
It also changes how to read Larsen’s fortune. His 17 percent of $38.3 billion is $6.5 billion of XRP held through the company, against $2.75 billion held in his own wallets. So by our math about 2.4 times as much of his XRP exposure sits inside Ripple as outside it. When people say his wealth tracks the token, they are more right than they think.
9 billion tokens at the start
Larsen received 9 billion XRP when the ledger was created in 2012, according to Protos. He gave 1.2 billion of them to RippleWorks, a foundation he started, in 2014 and 2015, and the SEC said he and his wife sold about 1.7 billion between 2015 and 2020 for roughly $450 million. In January 2018, Fortune confirmed he held 5.19 billion XRP and 17 percent of Ripple.
The sales since then have been well timed. ForkLog reported in October 2025 that a CryptoQuant analyst put his realized profit since January 2018 at $764 million, with close to 80 percent of it from trades within 10 percent of a cycle top. In July 2025 he moved about $140 million of tokens to an exchange as XRP hit its record.
Before Ripple: two lending companies
Larsen co-founded E-Loan, an online mortgage lender, in 1996 and took it public in June 1999. Yahoo paid $25 million for about 23 percent of it, and the company was valued around $1 billion by February 2000. He left in 2005 when it was sold to Banco Popular. That year he co-founded Prosper, a peer-to-peer lender, and ran it until March 2012. We found no figure for what either company paid him, so neither gets a ledger row: whatever they made has long since been spent, invested or folded into the cash he used to fund Ripple.
He started OpenCoin in September 2012 and stayed CEO when it became Ripple Labs in 2013. He handed the CEO job over in December 2016 and has been executive chairman since.
2026: a buyback, a listing and a falling token
Ripple launched a tender offer for up to $750 million of its own shares in March 2026, which Crypto News Australia reported valued the company at about $50 billion, 25 percent above the November round. Over the same months XRP and bitcoin fell 30 to 40 percent. We value his stake off the $40 billion round because a buyback price is what a company offers, while the round is what outside money paid.
Evernorth, an XRP treasury company Larsen helped fund, began trading on Nasdaq under the ticker XRPN in October 2026, FXStreet reported, holding about 473 million XRP. He said in October 2025 that the 50 million XRP he moved, then worth $120 million, paid for his investment. We found no record of how many shares he got, so the stake sits outside our ledger.
Three things would move this page: a Ripple listing or new funding round at a price far from $40 billion, a disclosure of his Evernorth shares, and the token itself. Every 10 cents on XRP moves his wallet row by $250 million.
Chris Larsen net worth FAQ
What is Chris Larsen’s net worth?
We estimate about $8.4 billion as of November 2026: $5.1 billion in Ripple shares, $2.75 billion in XRP and about $0.5 billion in cash from past token sales.
How much XRP does Chris Larsen own?
Wallets attributed to him held about 2.5 billion XRP in August 2026, down from 5.19 billion in January 2018 and 9 billion at the ledger’s creation in 2012.
How much did Chris Larsen make from selling XRP?
An on-chain analyst put his realized profit at $764 million from January 2018 to October 2025. The SEC said he and his wife sold about $450 million of XRP from 2015 to 2020, so the two periods overlap.
How much of Ripple does Chris Larsen own?
He held 17 percent in January 2018. Ripple doesn’t publish its shareholder list, so later dilution is unknown. At the $40 billion November 2025 round, 17 percent is $6.8 billion before any discount.
How old is Chris Larsen?
He is 66, born in 1960 in San Francisco. He has a bachelor’s degree from San Francisco State University and an MBA from Stanford.
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How we estimate net worth
Our estimates are based on public reporting, company valuations, and deal and earnings figures all compiled in an internal valuation model. They are approximate, and figures change over time as new information emerges.
Last updated: November 2026.
Photo: When Shift Happens / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0, cropped