San Francisco
THE virtual currency boom has gotten so heated that it is throwing the list of the world's richest people into disarray.
Consider what has happened to the founders of an upstart virtual currency known as Ripple, the value of which has skyrocketed in recent weeks. At one point on Thursday, Chris Larsen, a Ripple co-founder and the largest holder of Ripple tokens, was worth more than US$59 billion, according to figures from Forbes. That would have briefly vaulted him ahead of Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg into fifth place on Forbes' list of the world's richest people.
Other top Ripple holders would have also zoomed up that list as the value of their tokens soared more than...