Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss are the fourth-richest te the world of cryptocurrency. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

• Forbes on Wednesday released its first-ever list of the richest people ter bitcoin and cryptocurrency.
• Most of the people on the list are the founders and CEOs of the largest companies ter blockchain, the technology underpinning cryptocurrencies like bitcoin.
• They’re worth more than $17 billion and spil much spil $24 billion, tho’ that number fluctuates daily with price swings te the crypto market.

The life of a crypto-billionaire is strained.

After unprecedented gains overheen the past year &mdash, driving bitcoin, ether, and Ripple’s XRP up 1,300%, 8,000%, and 32,000% &mdash, cryptocurrencies have come back down to earth te latest weeks.

Spil of Friday afternoon, bitcoin wasgoed down 28% since late January. On Monday, bitcoin klapper $7,000, down 64% from its all-time high of almost $20,000 ter late December.

And spil of Tuesday, the total value of all digital currencies had dropped by 61% from its peak on January 7, to $320 billion from $826 billion.

While stories abound of regular people making fortunes ter crypto, the world’s richest te the space are primarily those making the pans and shovels ter the digital gold rush.

On Wednesday, Forbes tijdschrift released its first-ever list of the richest people ter cryptocurrency, similar to its Forbes 400 annual list, which dates back to 1982. The values are estimates based on the price of cryptocurrencies spil of January Nineteen.

Te his letterteken explaining why the tijdschrift created the list, Forbes’ editor, Randall Lane, said such transparency could help the crypto industry stir out of its shadowy beginnings to financial maturity.

Meet the world’s richest bitcoin billionaires: