People in Crypto: from Elon Musk and Vitalik Buterin to Changpeng Zhao and Barry Silbert, the crypto world is full of famous personalities. Not only investors but many celebrities, artists, industry leaders, and tech giants are also in love with digital currencies.
The terms like Blockchain and Cryptocurrency were hidden for almost a decade. But now many merchants accept crypto payment, and countries like the USA, India, and more are considering crypto as a movable safe digital asset. We have listed 50 dignitary personalities in the crypto space who actually made a difference in the world of digital currencies.
Influential Crypto Personalities
1. Elon Musk
If it is about people in crypto, Musk is a must. The CEO of Tesla is considered the alpha crypto influencer. Before he found his one true love in Dogecoin, Musk preferred Bitcoin, even for official transactions and payments.
2. Vitalik Buterin
Vitalik Buterin is the Founder of Ethereum, one of the topmost crypto assets in the world. A researcher and developer, he also co-founded Bitcoin Magazine. In addition to that, he is one of the world’s youngest crypto billionaires.
3. Changpeng Zhao
Changpeng Zhao is the CEO of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume. Prior to Binance, he was Head of Development at Blockchain and Chief Technology Officer of OK Coin. He also developed trading software at Bloomberg and the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
4. Michael Saylor
CEO of the software firm MicroStrategy, Michael Saylor is one of the more prominent figures in the cryptocurrency space. The firm started acquiring Bitcoin in August 2020, and since then it has been a major success. Saylor is known for his daily updates on what’s happening with Bitcoin.
5. Barry Silbert
Barry Silbert is the Founder and CEO of the crucial blockchain company Digital Currency Group. He was Crain’s and Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year and appeared on Fortune’s 40 Under 40 list. In 2021, Silbert supported the drive towards crypto adoption as more and more institutions are joining the crypto craze.
6. Sandeep Nailwal
The founder of Polygon and an Indian entrepreneur, Sandeep Nailwal launched ScopeWeaver, India’s largest marketplace for professional services. His work as blockchain-based decentralized application architecture made Sandeep Nailwal one of the most influential people in crypto.
7. Winklevoss twins
Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss are American rowers and Internet entrepreneurs, famous for co-founding cryptocurrency exchange Gemini in 2014. Today, the platform processes about $200 million a day in trades.
8. Juan Benet
Juan Benet is the founder of Protocol Labs. He founded Protocol Labs in 2014 and the following year he founded InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) which is a peer-to-peer data-sharing protocol. In 2017, he launched the Filecoin Project which was built on IFPS.
9. Brian Armstrong
Co-founder and CEO of Coinbase, Brian Armstrong’s fortune is estimated at $7 billion in 2022. Coinbase is one of the most popular cryptocurrency trading platforms in the United States, where one can exchange fiat money for cryptocurrencies. Prior to this, he founded UniversityTutor.com and worked at Airbnb, IBM, and Deloitte.
10. Kathleen Breitman
CEO of Dynamic Ledger Solutions and co-founder at Tezos, a self-amending cryptographic ledger, and creator of the unreleased blockchain-based trading card game Emergents. Prior to this, Kathleen was Senior Strategy Associate at the large financial consortium R3 CEV and worked in strategy at Accenture.
11. Chris Larsen
Chris Larsen, the co-founder of one of the most popular cryptocurrencies, Ripple, is a business executive and angel investor best known for co-founding several Silicon Valley technology startups. According to Forbes, some years ago, Chris Larsen was the richest man in the world of cryptocurrencies, whose fortune was estimated at $7.5-8 billion.
12. Hayden Adams
Another name in the list of 50 most powerful people in crypto is Hayden Adams, founder of Uniswap, a decentralized trading protocol for ERC-20 tokens on Ethereum. Uniswap automates liquidity and removes the need for intermediaries. Prior to Uniswap, Adams was an engineer at Siemens.
13. Caitlin Long
Caitlin Long is a 22-year Wall Street veteran and an expert in bitcoin and blockchain technology. Founder and CEO at Avanti Bank & Trust and Chairman of WyoHackathon. In 2016, she received the MarketsMedia Women in Finance Award for Excellence in Blockchain.
14. Tavonia Evans
Tavonia Evans entered the blockchain world in 2016 after seeing crypto as a tool that might boost economic growth and financial independence among the black community. She is among the first black women to be recognized as the founder and lead engineer in creating a currency with such a purpose in the black community.
15. Adam Back
Adam Back is a British cryptographer and cypherpunk. He is the Co-founder and CEO of Blockstream, a blockchain, and Bitcoin technology company, and the creator of Liquid, a sidechain-based network. He invented Hashcash, which is used in the Bitcoin mining process. His immense contribution in the blockchain industry makes him one of the most influential people in crypto.
16. Anthony Pompliano
Anthony Pompliano is a Co-founder and Partner at the blockchain and digital assets firm Morgan Creek Digital Assets (formerly Full Tilt Capital), he has invested $100+ million in early-stage startups. Prior to this, he was Product Manager at Facebook and in growth at Snapchat.
17. Ben Zhou
Ben Zhou, co-founder, and CEO of Bybit, a cryptocurrency derivatives exchange headquartered in Singapore. He is also a committer and supporter of BitDAO. Prior to this, Ben ran a retail forex brokerage for almost a decade.
18. Brian Brooks
Brian Brooks is the CEO of Bitfury Group, the bitcoin mining, and crypto tech unicorn. He is one of the most visionary global leaders in fintech and cryptocurrency with 35+ years of experience. Prior to this, he was the Former Chief Legal Officer at Coinbase, where he oversaw compliance, legal issues, and government regulations.
19. Tim Draper
Tim Draper has invested in Skype, Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter, and Coinbase. Draper is surely one of the most influential people in crypto when it comes to Bitcoin. According to published reports, Draper currently owns 30,000 Bitcoins now worth more than $500 million at today’s prices.
20. Gabriella M. Kusz
Gabriella M. Kusz started advising professionals in the crypto industry in 2019. She started as an advisor with the Global Digital Asset and Cryptocurrency Association and went on to become a board member and finally the CEO.
21. Jesse Powell
Jesse Powell is Co-founder and CEO at Kraken Exchange, a digital asset exchange platform supporting Bitcoin, Ethereum, Namecoin, Litecoin, Ripple, Dogecoin, and Stellar, as well as fiat currencies. According to Powell, “You can’t make this stuff up. This timeline is beyond twisted. Certainly didn’t see a banking license in the cards when we set out on this mission 9 years ago. We have come full circle, crypto.”
22. Elizabeth Stark
Elizabeth Stark is Co-founder and CEO at Lightning Labs, which created the open-source, secure, and scalable Lightning Network to transfer money efficiently. She is a Fellow at the Yale Information Society Project, a Lecturer in Computer Science at Yale University, and an Adjunct Associate Professor at NYU.
El Salvador President Supports Bitcoin
23. Nayib Bukele
Nayib Bukele is the 43rd president of El Salvador. He simply believes that Bitcoin is the future of finance. Nayib is known for being the first head of the state of a sovereign nation to adopt it as a legal tender on September 7, 2021.
24. Roger Ver
The list of top 50 most prominent people in crypto is incomplete without the “Bitcoin Jesus,” Roger Ver was one of the earliest promoters of Bitcoin back in 2011. He owns around 335,000 bitcoins, worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Roger was one of the early adopters of blockchain technology and an investor in crypto-related startups including Bitcoin, Ripple, Kraken, and Purse.io.
25. Lisa Loud
Lisa co-founded FLUIDEFI and is currently leading it as its CEO. Previously, she has led engineering, marketing, and international expansion at different firms, including ShapeShift, Apple, Oracle, Intuit, and PayPal.
26. Ryan Selkis
Ryan Selkis is Founder and CEO at Messari, entrepreneur, investor, and writer helping to build the bitcoin/digital currency ecosystem. Prior to this, he was the Managing Director of CoinDesk during its acquisition and also the Director of Growth in the founding team at Digital Currency Group.
27. Dawn Song
Dawn Song is a Chinese American academic and is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department. She is a co-founder and CEO of blockchain-based cloud computing developer Oasis Labs.
28. Anatoly Yakovenko
Anatoly Yakovenko is an engineer and entrepreneur. He is one of the co-founders of Solana Labs. He led the development of operating systems at Qualcomm, distributed systems at Mesosphere, and compression at Dropbox
29. Charlie Lee
Litecoin founder and former Coinbase Director of Engineering, Charlie Lee is one of the most influential personalities in the crypto space. On his Twitter account, Lee shares the latest Litecoin and Litecoin Foundation news, as well as the latest articles related to crypto.
30. Lisa Francoeur
Lisa Francoeur is the co-founder of Crypto Tutors, an educational platform that uses eLearning, 1:1 tutoring, and edutainment to empower minorities. As she pursues her vision of “scaling empowerment globally,” she has been dubbed the “Oprah of Tech.”
31. Sergey Nazarov
Sergey Nazarov is Co-founder of Chainlink and Co-founder and CEO of SmartContract, connecting smart contracts to external data, Prior to this, he was Co-founder and CEO of Secure Asset Exchange. Sergey Nazarov is one of the cryptocurrency developers accused of being Satoshi Nakamoto.
32. Justin Sun
Justin Sun is a Chinese cryptocurrency entrepreneur and business executive. He is the founder of Tron, a blockchain DAO ecosystem and BitTorrent. Sun is the Permanent Representative of Grenada to the WTO. The First millennial graduate of Hupan University.
Celebrities also promote crypto:
33. Akon
Akon is a major proponent of cryptocurrencies and has plans to launch his own cryptocurrency, Akoin. In an interview with Bloomberg, Akon said, “There are going to be digital currencies that will float through the whole universe that allow us to trade in a way that we’re already accustomed to — but now it’s going to be the norm.”
34. Gavin Wood
Gavin Wood is the President and Founder of Web3 Foundation and the creator of Polkadot. Before creating a major Ethereum competitor, though, Wood was a key contributor to Ethereum itself, who offered the network much-needed technical expertise in its infancy.
35. Erik Voorhees
Founder and CEO of ShapeShift, one of the world’s leading crypto exchange platforms, Erik Voorhees is also the co-founder of Coinapult, a Bitcoin wallet. He actively shares his insights on Twitter with his 597,300 followers. He’s also on Medium, where he writes articles about Bitcoin and ShapeShift.
36. Robert Leshner
Robert Leshner is the Founder of Compound Finance, an autonomous, open-source protocol for developers. He co-founded the DeFi platform Compound in 2017, a protocol for money markets on Ethereum.
37. Elizabeth Stark
Elizabeth is the co-founder and CEO of Lightning Labs. She is a blockchain entrepreneur, instructor, and supporter of the open internet. She is a fellow at Coin Center, the leading digital currency policy organization, and an advisor at Chia, a company building a new blockchain protocol based on proof of space and time.
38. Joseph Lubin
Joseph Lubin is a co-founder of the blockchain computing platform Ethereum and the founder of ConsenSys, a blockchain venture studio and consultancy creating decentralized applications, developer tools, and enterprise solutions on Ethereum.
39. Tone Vays
Tone Vays is a speaker, thought leader, and public figure in the Blockchain industry. He is a financial advisor who runs channels on several online platforms, including Instagram, YouTube, and his own website,
40. Jeremy Allaire
Jeremy D. Allaire is an American-born technologist and Internet entrepreneur. He is the CEO and founder of the digital currency company Circle and chairman of the board of Brightcove. They created USD Coin (USDC), the fastest-growing, fully regulated digital dollar stablecoin.
41. Alex Mashinsky
Alex Mashinsky is an Israeli-American entrepreneur and business executive. He was the founder and CEO of Celsius Network, a cryptocurrency lending platform. Generated over $1.5 billion as the creator of eight firms and three Unicorns, with over $3 billion in exits, and currently leads the Celsius team with more than $25 billion in crypto assets.
42. Jed McCaleb
Jed McCaleb is an American programmer, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. He is a co-founder and the CTO of Stellar. He is also Advisor to Machine Intelligence Research Institute. Prior to this, he founded Ripple, Code Collective, and MetaMachine.
43. Stani Kulechov
Aave founder Stani Kulechov joined Dan Roberts and Stacy Elliott to talk about his vision for the next iteration of Defi, Aave V3, and Lens Protocol, the Web3 company he wishes he had founded, and why now is the right time for the $5B lending protocol to launch its GHO stablecoin.
44. Michael Edward Novogratz
Michael Edward Novogratz is an American investor, formerly of the investment firm Fortress Investment Group. He is currently CEO of Galaxy Investment Partners which focuses on investments in cryptocurrency.
45. Bobby Ong
Next in the list of top 50 people in crypto is Bobby Ong, co-founder of CoinGecko, an analytics platform for tracking cryptocurrencies and blockchain assets. CoinGecko was established in April 2014 and is one of the largest crypto asset data aggregators in the world.
46. Sam McIngvale
Sam McIngvale is Head of Product for Coinbase Custody at Coinbase, the most trusted cryptocurrency custodian and cold storage, offering insurance and externally audited financial and security controls.
47. Raoul Pal
Raoul Pal leads Real Vision to provide unparalleled access to the very best insights and analysis from the brightest financial minds. He is also the Founder and CEO of The Global Macro Investor, an investment strategy research firm serving major hedge, pension, sovereign wealth, and family funds.
48. Meltem Demirors
Meltem Demirors is the Chief Strategy Officer of CoinShares, Europe’s largest digital asset investment and trading group. She was also an Inaugural Member of the Blockchain Council at the World Economic Forum.
49. Andreas Antonopoulos
Andreas Antonopoulos is a famous speaker, businessman, podcast host, and author of the book “Mastering Bitcoin: Unlocking Digital Currencies, Mastering Ethereum, and The Internet of Money.” He is also known for being a Bitcoin and blockchain advocate.
50. All of us
It doesn’t matter if you are from the USA or India, if you are investing in the digital currency then it makes you one of the most influential people in crypto. According to the GCO Data, As of 2023, the estimated global crypto ownership rates are at an average of 4.2%, with over 420 million crypto users worldwide.
Source: https://coingape.com/blog/people-in-crypto-top-50-most-influential-crypto-personalities-in-the-world-10003/