Crypto billionaire ‘suddenly‘ knocks Heineken heiress off throne as richest Dutchman

After fourteen years, the Netherlands has a new richest person. Heineken heiress Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken must relinquish her first place in the annual Quote 500. The new frontrunner is a relatively unknown entrepreneur who made his fortune with crypto. In fact, his estimated ability is twice that of the former number one.

The new richest Dutchman is 62-year-old Jean-Louis van der Velde, born in Arnhem as Ludovicus Jan van der Velde. According to business magazine Quote, he has an estimated capital of 26 billion euros.

With that, he leaves Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken far behind. The daughter of beer magnate Freddy Heineken was at the top of the list since 2012, but now has to settle for second place. Its assets are estimated at 13 billion euros.

Van der Velde earned his billions mainly with crypto company Tether, which is behind the largest stablecoin in the world. The company was founded in 2014 and grew into one of the most important players in the crypto sector. Van der Velde was CEO for many years, but handed over that position to Paolo Ardoino in 2023.

Today, he is still an advisor at Tether and heads the crypto exchange Bitfinex.

Although Van der Velde has been a billionaire for years, he appears in the Quote 500 for the first time this year. There is a special reason behind this.

The entrepreneur left for Asia in the 1980s and has been living in Hong Kong for decades. For a long time, it was unclear whether he still had Dutch nationality.

Quote has now been confirmed that this is indeed the case. As a result, Van der Velde can now be officially included in the ranking.

Incidentally, his assets remain difficult to determine. Tether is unlisted and provides little information about its shareholders. Previously, Forbes estimated its net worth at $38 billion, while Bloomberg came to about $16 billion.

The new Quote 500 also shows that more and more Dutch people are building their wealth in the technology sector.

For example, 31-year-old Pim de Witte comes in at 49th place with an estimated capital of 1.1 billion euros. He is the founder of AI company General Intuition and, according to Quote, the youngest Dutch billionaire ever.

The combined wealth of the richest Dutch people has also risen sharply. Together, the five hundred wealthiest Dutch people now own more than 300 billion euros. That is more than ten percent higher than last year.