A former blackhat hacker named Gummo claims to have amassed around $7 billion in Bitcoin. Although Gummo has conducted interviews with Soft White Underbelly, a YouTube channel with nearly 4 million subscribers, very little information about Gummo has been revealed so whether his claims are reliable is still an unanswered question.
According to Gummo, he has been working in this field for more than 30 years. At first, he hacked for illicit reasons and even got caught by the authorities but then, with the support and advice of his wife, he has turned to do good work like hunting bugs or consulting developers.
In 2013 when the Bitcoin price was only around $200-300, Gummo built 4 supercomputers to mine Bitcoin and generated over 80,000 BTC within a year and a half. As of now, he has amassed around 179,000 BTC. If these Bitcoins are calculated at current prices, Gummo would become the 369th richest person in the world, according to Forbes’ 2021 list.
Gummo stated that his current work in hacking isn’t motivated by the desire to have a job or money, but to help other people and protect them from online evils. “I’m quite wealthy. Yeah, I do not have to work if I don’t choose to. I have over seven billion dollars worth of Bitcoin,” he said.