The most influential people in the cryptocurrency industry

An author's article by Pavel Gromov, a trader and author of the telegram channel "The Chief in Crypt".

AT cryptocurrency industry, as in any other,there are its “authorities” and evangelists who in every possible way support, develop and promote it, having a significant impact on the prospects of individual projects. Such people are able to make a project or cryptocurrency popular in one tweet and in the same way kill all its potential.

Who are they? Investors, project founders, advisers, public figures, economists, traders and other professionals. Next, we will highlight the most influential people who have made a huge contribution to the development of the digital economy and have an impact on the largest cryptocurrencies by capitalization.

1. Changpeng Zhao

Changpeng Zhao is the founder of one of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchanges Binance. CZ, as they call it in the community, is one of the most influential and public figures in the crypto industry.

After graduation, Zhao enteredUniversity of Montreal, Faculty of Computer Science. In parallel with his studies, Zhao learned the basics of stock trading. These are two fundamental factors in his life, it was they who set the further vector of development. From 2001 to 2005, Zhao worked for Bloomberg and was responsible for creating the interface for traders. Further, Zhao founded his own company Fusion Systems, which created software for exchanges and traders. In 2013, Ron Kao (manager of Lightspeed Venture Partners) introduced Zhao to Bitcoin. From that moment, Zhao devoted all his free time to the study of cryptocurrencies.

In 2013, Zhao took part in the development andthe establishment of the Blockchain.info service. In 2014, he switched to working on the Okcoin exchange, where he worked for less than a year. In a post on Reddit, he said that the fault of his departure was not a friendly team and the lack of opportunity to agree with Roger Ver about any issues related to the development of the exchange.

In 2017, Zhao holds an initial offeringBinance exchange tokens, on which it collects $ 15 million. In just six months, Binance exchange becomes the leader among cryptocurrency platforms, the volume of trading operations on which, at peak times, reached $ 11 billion.

Impact on the cryptocurrency industry

Changpen Zhao has a fairly strong influence on the industry, as the founder of the largest cryptocurrency exchange. In fact, Changpen Zhao and Binance are one.

One of the most striking examples of the effect of CZ onthe industry is the delisting of Bitcoin SV, which on the day of the announcement of removal from the exchange fell from $ 73 to $ 62. The cause of the delisting was the actions of Craig Wright, who is a co-founder of BSV and a very scandalous person who calls himself Satoshi Nakamoto. Continuing to bend his line, as well as threatening litigation with members of the crypto community who do not recognize him, Wright literally infuriated CZ, who decided to remove Bitcoin SV from the exchange. His example was followed by a number of large platforms, such as Kraken, ShapeShift and others.

Announcement of listing or delisting of anycryptocurrency or token on the exchange instantly affects its value. A similar situation occurs with projects, the purchase or creation of which is announced by Zhao or the exchange, they immediately become the center of increased attention. At the same time, hacking the exchange can have a negative impact on the rate of bitcoin and, accordingly, other cryptocurrencies.

Social networks

Twitter: https://www.instagram.com/changpengzhao/
Instagram: https://twitter.com/cz_binance

Zhao leads Instagram and Twitter. In both social. networks Zhao shares innovations in the company, the results of various forums, seminars, as well as travel photos. In total, over 475 thousand people are subscribed to CZ on social networks.

condition

According to various estimates, Changpen Zhao's fortune is about $ 2 billion.

2. Roger Ver

Roger Ver - “The Bitcoin Evangelist.” One of the very first bitcoin investors. Invested in early stages in such projects as bitcoin.com, blockchain.info, Localbitcoins, Kraken, Bitstamp, Bitpay and others. An ardent supporter of the Bitcoin Cash cryptocurrency.

According to outsiders, Roger isn’t justHe was interested in the idea of ​​a “digital coin”, he promoted and promoted it in every way, like a real missionary. Roger invested in highly successful crypto startups, and his first and most important investment was to buy 400,000 BTC in the early stages.

In 2017, Roger Ver supported and stronglyHe promoted the Bitcoin Cash hard fork, believing that BCH is the initial development path along which BTC was supposed to develop. At a certain point, he even announced that Bitcoin Cash is the original BTC, with the restored original function.

Impact on the cryptocurrency industry

Early Bitcoin Roger Verstrongly supported the development of the main cryptocurrency and had a significant influence on the market. In 2017, Roger switched to the Bitcoin Cash hard fork, which in every way supports and promotes in the cryptocurrency community and beyond. At the end of November 2019, Ver announced the creation of a fund with a capital of $ 200 million to support projects working on the development of the Bitcoin Cash ecosystem. Information on the structure of the fund is still unknown, but it is expected that it will be created on the basis of the Bitcoin.com infrastructure in 2020.

Roger himself is restrained about his love for BCH:

“I promoted Bitcoin. Today I am promoting Bitcoin Cash. Tomorrow I will promote something else if it is superior to Bitcoin Cash in terms of the spread of economic freedom in the world. ”

Social networks

Twitter: https://twitter.com/rogerkver
Roger's twitter is packed with a wide variety of content, from jokes to various interesting and important news in the crypto world. Almost 600 thousand people signed up for Vera’s page.

condition

Roger's fortune is estimated at 300,000 BTC, whichat the current exchange rate is more than $ 2 billion. Do not forget that owning bitcoins, Ver received BCH, which were charged to all holders of bitcoin. According to various estimates, the real state of the investor can be estimated at $ 5 billion or more.

3. Vitalik Buterin

Vitalik Buterin is the founder of Ethereum and a former editor of Bitcoin Magazine. One of the most influential people in the cryptocurrency industry, despite the relatively young age.

Having studied the blockchain technology, Buterin decided to createnot just cryptocurrency, but a real global computer - EVM, a platform based on which it is possible to create decentralized projects based on smart contracts and solve much more tasks than a peer to peer system such as Bitcoin is capable of. Ethereum became a new, revolutionary project in the young industry and was unofficially called blockchain 2.0, on the idea of ​​which many other popular and useful projects were born, such as, for example, EOS or TRON.

For the idea of ​​creating Ethereum, Vitalik won the awardWorld Technology Award, beating Mark Zuckerberg and other strong contenders. In 2017, Vitalik Buterin entered the top 10 of the Fortune 40 Most Influential Young People Under 40 rating, and also entered the Forbes magazine's list of the most successful entrepreneurs under the age of 30.

Impact on the cryptocurrency industry

Vitaly Buterin has a very straightforwardcharacter and does not hesitate to blame any other project and the person for fraud, if he sees real reasons for this. At the same time, it’s virtually impossible to blame Vitaly for anything, since he has repeatedly criticized the ICO market and the crypto community as a whole for the lack of desire to develop a promising technology, preferring to cash in on the cryptocurrency hi-tech.

Justin Sun fell under criticism of the founder of ETH along with the TRON project, which Buterin accused of plagiarism.

Famous fictosha Craig Wright speaking atThe Deconomy conference, was no exception, Vitaly Buterin, who did not hide his dislike for Wright, asked the organizers a tough question: “Why was this fraudster given a word?”

Social networks

Twitter: https://twitter.com/vitalikbuterin
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/user/vbuterin/
Vitalik actively leads Twitter and Reddit, onwhich is signed by nearly 1 million people. Also, the founder of the broadcast gives interviews and visits podcasts, however, he is very careful in his statements and mainly shares information about upcoming updates, which, if they affect the ETH rate, are short-term and not strong.

In one of the latest podcasts at Thiel Capital,Vitalik said that the Ethereum Foundation earned about $ 100 million in peak races in 2017. He also assures that although he knew about the company's intentions to sell ethers, he did not shorten his coins.

condition

According to Forbes magazine, Vitalik Buterin’s fortune is estimated at $ 400-500 million. According to Vitaly himself, he never owned more than 0.9% ETH of the total issue.

4. Jed McCaleb

Jed McCaleb - Founder of the cryptocurrency exchangeMtGox, co-founder of Ripple Labs and Stellar. Jeb is one of the most talented and influential people in the cryptocurrency industry, who created 3 large projects that significantly influenced the development of the crypto world.

In 2007, McCaleb bought the Mtgox.com domain name. Initially, the idea was to make a site selling in-game items from the game Magic: The Gathering.

A few months later, the idea changed in 2010.In the same year, the exchange of the same name for trading bitcoins was launched. At the end of 2011, he sold the exchange, despite its immense popularity. The fate of MtGox and its impact on the crypto market is well known to everyone.

From 2011 to 2013, Jed worked at Ripple Labs, atone of the management positions. What is noteworthy, it was he who took on the post of CEO Chris Larenz. The paths of Jed and Ripple Labs diverged due to disagreements about the concept of the project. According to Jed's logic, for a decentralized currency, XRP has become too centralized.

In 2014, with Joyce Kim, he becomesco-founder of the Stellar Development Foundation. From this, the development of the Stellar cryptocurrency began, which today takes 11th place in terms of capitalization and is successfully developing.

Impact on the cryptocurrency industry

Jed has huge weight in cryptocurrencyindustry, his participation in any new project can instantly attract interest in him and make him popular even without advertising. Connections and collaboration with large financial and technology corporations make Jed actually a link between traditional business and cryptocurrencies.

In addition, McCaleb repeatedly negativelyspoke about various cryptocurrency projects, calling 90% of them just rubbish, including the TRON project. The exceptions, in his opinion, are Bitcoin, Ethereum and Stellar. In an interview with Yahoo Finance, Jed said most financial institutions would never use bitcoin.

At the SwellbyRipple conference, Jed criticizedstatement by Ripple Labs technical director David Schwartz that if the ripple network had not been decentralized, anyone could hack it and burn half of the XRP to raise its value. To which McCaleb replied: “What are you talking about? Ripple Labs can easily burn half of XRP's stock. ”

Social networks

Twitter https://twitter.com/jedmccaleb
Jed McCaleb's Twitter account has 28,000 followers. For the most part, he publishes news that is somehow related to the development of Stellar.

condition

According to various sources, Jed’s condition is estimatedfrom 1 to 5 billion dollars, which also includes about 5 billion XRP tokens, which, by agreement with Ripple Labs, the Jed does not have to sell at once, but only in small parts and gradually.

5. Charlie Lee

Charlie Lee is the founder of the Litecoin cryptocurrency, which is the second fork of Bitcoin.

While at Google, Lee first readabout Bitcoin and seriously interested in the concept of cryptocurrencies. In 2011, he turned directly to Michael Hearn, one of the developers of the core for Bitcoin, and purchased from him 100 BTC for $ 30. According to Charlie himself, he never sold his bitcoins. In the same year, Charlie seriously thought about a cryptocurrency that will solve the problems that Bitcoin has.

In 2013, Charlie leaves Google and gets settledat Coinbase, while working on Litecoin. The new cryptocurrency during its existence has been recognized by the community as digital silver, by analogy with Bitcoin, which is considered digital gold. Litecoin has higher bandwidth than Bitcoin, higher transaction speed and lower network fees. There is a known case when, in 2 minutes, $ 104 million was transferred using LTC, and the transaction fee was only 45 cents.

In 2017, Lee leaves Coinbase due to the growing popularity of cryptocurrencies and devotes all his strength to the development of Litecoin, saying the following:

“Litecoin is like my child, I invested more in it than those with 1 million LTC.”

Influence on the currency industry

Charlie Lee, like Changpen Zhao, is closely associated withits brainchild, however, unlike CZ, it has a direct effect only on Litecoin. For example, in 2018, when Charlie sold all his stocks to LTC and sent the proceeds to charity, explaining that he did not want to continue to be accused of fluctuations in the price of cryptocurrency. Some users blamed him for this act, since it could affect the cost of LTC. However, Lee himself noted that the coins he owned accounted for only a small percentage of the daily trading volume of the GDAX, so selling them will not collapse the market.

Social networks

Twitter: https://twitter.com/satoshilite
Charlie Lee is actively tweeting. He has 827 thousand followers and 14.5 thousand tweets. On his page Charlie talk about how work is being done on Litecoin, trading volumes and publishes various charts.

condition

According to official figures, he gave all his LTC tocharity, the current state is unknown. One can only assume that at least he has at his disposal 100 BTC (about $ 700 thousand), bought from Mike Hearn, which, as Lee stated, he never sold.

6. Brian Armstrong

Brian Armstrong is a co-founder of Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency exchange and exchange in the United States. The company’s services are used by more than 20 million people worldwide.

In 2011, Brian and Fred Ersam decidedcreate a project to send bitcoin payments and name it Coinbase. Since June 2012, Brian has been CEO at this company. In the future, the contribution to the promotion of the company was made by another well-known developer in the crypto world - Charlie Lee.

To date, Coinbase's capitalization exceeds $ 8 billion.

Impact on the cryptocurrency industry

Unlike its cryptocurrency counterpartsto the world, Brian Armstrong does not seek to push his interests inside the industry, but rather lobbies it among regulators and tries his best to make it closer to ordinary people. For example, in October, CEO Coinbase called on US authorities to change their attitude to digital currencies and emphasized that the slowness in introducing regulation of relations between participants in the crypto market will lead to a technological lag in the country.

Armstrong is a true crypto enthusiast who believes that cryptocurrencies will repeat the success story of the World Wide Web.

Social networks

Twitter: https://twitter.com/brian_armstrong
Brian Armstrong's Twitter account has more than 315,000 followers. The topics of the posts are mainly related to the development of the cryptocurrency industry, new technologies and Coinbase.

condition

According to official figures, Armstrong's fortune is estimated at $ 1 billion, excluding the ownership of personal cryptocurrency assets.

7. Chris Larsen

Chris Larsen is an American entrepreneur and investor, co-founder of Ripple Labs.

In 2012, Larsen became a co-founder of the company.OpenCoin, which began developing a new payment protocol called Ripple, based on a concept developed by Ryan Fugger. Ripple allows instant and direct money transfers between two parties in seconds. The XRP token in this case is a token representing the transferred asset. With extensive experience in various lending organizations, Chris wanted to revolutionize the payments industry, and Ripple was suitable for this purpose. Chris invested in the project at the initial stage, and after renaming from OpenCoin to Ripple Labs, he became its manager.

It was Larsen who became the engine that helpedthe platform to start and successfully develop, today it is considered a competitor of the international interbank system SWIFT, because thanks to its impeccable reputation, connections and others, it was able to promote Ripple among banking institutions. At the moment, Ripple is the third cryptocurrency by capitalization, which does not stop in its development, but is being improved every day.

Impact on the cryptocurrency industry

Verbal influence on the industry Chris Larsen is nothe has, because, like Buterin, he is very cautious in his statements, which is not surprising, given his vast and rich experience in business. Larsen often speaks at various conferences, in schools and universities.

The businessman was not seen in high-profile statements,which in some way would have an impact on other projects or Ripple, but quite often “fend off” from community attacks that accuse the company of large XRP sales that negatively affect the coin rate. In addition, class action lawsuits were filed with Ripple, which, according to Larsen, have no real basis.

Social networks

Twitter: https://twitter.com/chrislarsensf
Chris is registered on Twitter in which to himmore than 35 thousand people have been signed, where he actively conducts conversations both with subscribers and with “colleagues in the shop,” writes about the news and achievements of Ripple Labs. On November 22, 2019, he said that thanks to a jump in the price of XRP at the end of 2017, and with the help of a non-operational charity fund, they were able to distribute more than $ 25 million in the form of highly effective financial support in low-income countries such as Senegal, Kenya, Nigeria and Myanmar

condition

Chris's fortune is valued at $ 4.5 billion, including 5.2 billion XRP tokens, as well as assets of Ripple Labs. In 2017, when XRP cost exceeded $ 3 per coin, Forbes estimated Larsen’s fortune at $ 59 billion, which put him in 5th place of the richest people in the world, leaving Mark Zuckerberg behind.

8. The Winklevoss Brothers

Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss - FamousAmerican business brothers created the Gemini cryptocurrency exchange. They are also known for having sued Mark Zuckerberg for a long period of time, believing that he stole the idea of ​​Facebook. According to the court’s decision, he was paid $ 65 million. In 2013, they used part of their payments under a settlement to buy about 92,000 military transport vehicles, having spent then $ 11 million on this, paying $ 120 for each coin. In addition, they supported many successful projects related to bitcoin, which also brings them profit. Brothers are considered the first official Bitcoin billionaires.

Impact on the cryptocurrency industry

Tyler and Cameron played an important role inpopularization and promotion of bitcoin in the USA. Using a personal example, they proved the prospect of the cryptocurrency industry by investing in digital assets and related projects.

Today the brothers are actively engaged in developmentown exchanges and no longer play such a serious role as before, becoming less public. Nevertheless, from time to time they make themselves felt, supporting a particular project. For example, recently, despite a long-standing conflict with Zuckerberg, the brothers said they wanted to support the Libra project from Facebook and were ready to work with him.

Social networks

Tyler Twitter: https://twitter.com/tylerwinklevoss
Cameron's Twitter: https://twitter.com/winklevoss
The total number of subscribers to the brothers' pages is more than 350 thousand people. The vast majority of posts relate to the successes and news of their cryptocurrency exchange Gemini.

condition

The total fortune of the Winklevoss brothers is estimated at more than $ 1 billion, including bitcoins and shares in invested projects.

9. Joseph Lubin

Joseph Lubin is a well-known American investor andEntrepreneur, co-founder of Ethereum and founder of ConsenSys, a venture capital firm investing in projects within the Ethereum ecosystem. The company employs 1,200 people and has 48 startups in its portfolio.

Joseph is considered one of the first and foremostEthereum investors, since a few weeks before the presentation of the project, Lyubin was already familiar with Buterin. The idea of ​​Ethereum impressed Joseph so much that he began to invest not only on the air, but also in projects that are based on his ecosystem. Among the most famous projects in which the investor participated: uPort, Metamask, Civil, Truffle and Gnosis.

Impact on the cryptocurrency industry

There is no doubt that Joseph hada strong influence on the development of the cryptocurrency industry, investing in many projects, among which there is ethereum. As the cryptocurrency market recovers and the cost of projects grows, ConsenSys will again become a very wealthy fund, but at the moment, most projects have incurred losses.

Potentially, if Lubin decidesto sell illiquid tokens, as well as restore losses by selling ether or bitcoins, it can affect the dynamics of the leading cryptocurrencies and literally depreciate a huge number of tokens.

According to crypto insiders, Joseph Lubin maybeing the only largest Ethereum holder in the world with a valuation of up to $ 10 billion, but Lubin insists that he does not have so much ETH and is actively selling his stocks for the development of the ConsenSys project.

Social networks

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ethereumJoseph
On his Twitter, Joseph Lubin posts mainly information related to ConsenSys and company-related projects. 111,000 people have signed up for the investor’s page.

condition

Joseph’s fortune is estimated at between $ 1 and $ 5 billion,which can constantly change due to the presence of a huge investment package in blockchain startups, the cost of which depends on the overall dynamics of the cryptocurrency market.

10. Daniel Larimer

Daniel Larimer is CTO of Block.one, co-founder of BitShares, EOS, and Steemit. Since the advent of Bitcoin, Dan has shown interest in him and has repeatedly had contact with its creator, Satoshi Nakamoto. But they didn’t have fruitful cooperation, which was unknown for the cause of the conflict, but communication stopped after Satoshi’s phrase: “If you don’t believe me or don’t understand, then I don’t have time to try to convince you, sorry.”

From 2013 to 2015, Dan worked as a managerInvictus Innocations, which developed the Bitshares platform. During his time at the company, Daniel invented Graphene technology. Since 2016, Daniel has been working on the Steemit project, which was a decentralized social network. He worked in it, as technical director, until March 2017.

In April 2017, Block was established.one, which is developing a decentralized blockchain platform EOS. To attract investment, it was decided to conduct an ICO EOS, during which a record $ 4 billion was collected for the industry.

Impact on the cryptocurrency industry

Daniel has no strong influence on the industryprovides, in addition to those projects in which he is directly involved, especially in EOS. Since EOS takes the 7th place in terms of capitalization among cryptocurrencies and a huge number of people have invested in it, the information that comes from Daniel gives users the opportunity to monitor the work on the project. Larimer is to some extent a marker, the actions and actions of which can have a significant impact on the course of EOS.

Social networks

Twitter https://twitter.com/bytemaster7
For 41 thousand subscribers, Daniel shares useful information related to both the blockchain industry and the development and development of EOS.

condition

Daniel does not advertise his fortune, but according to various estimates, it amounts to $ 600-700 million.

Applicants for TOP-10

In addition to the above people who contributeda significant contribution to the development of the industry, and are also able to have a significant impact on the market, projects and the opinion of the crypto community, there are other investors and entrepreneurs. They play a less significant role in the development of the market, however, they can have an impact on the exchange rate of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, having large capital.

Jared kenna - investor. Having estimated the potential of the technology, blockchain and cryptocurrencies decided to continue investing in bitcoin, purchasing a coin in large batches of 5000 BTC. Some of them were sold at the rate of $ 258, but the exact number of coins sold is unknown. Several sources claim that 111,114 military-technical exchanges are currently stored in his wallet.

Jared Kenn's Twitter: https://twitter.com/jeredkenna

Charlie shrem - Development Director of Jaxx, co-founder of the Bitcoin Foundation and the Bitinstant crypto exchange. Many sources indicate that he has about 100,000 military-technical equipment at his disposal.

Charlie Shrem's Twitter: https://twitter.com/charlieshrem

Michael Novogratz - CEO of cryptocurrency bankGalaxy Digital According to various estimates, its capital is estimated at 42,000 military-technical cooperation. Novogratz himself estimated that about 20% of his capital is in the form of digital assets. In addition to owning cryptocurrencies, Michael invested in Ethereum, mining, cryptocurrency exchanges and ICOs.

Twitter by Michael Novogratz: https://twitter.com/novogratz

Barry Silbert - Founder of Digital Currency Group. One of the earliest cryptocurrency investors. In 2014, he got 48,000 MTC at a price of $ 350 for 1 BTC at the second auction organized by the US Marshals Service. In addition to Bitcoin, he invested in Ethereum Classic and ZCash, thanks to which, according to his own statements, he was able to increase invested capital by 4 times.

Twitter Barry Silbert: https://twitter.com/barrysilbert

Tim Draper - investor. In 2014, he acquired 29,656 bitcoins put up for sale by the US Federal Executive Service for less than $ 20 million. Tim Draper invested $ 1.6 billion in the American Coinbase exchange, $ 160 million in the South Korean crypto exchange Korbit and in the Coinplug service. According to various estimates, it owns a crypto fortune of more than $ 2 billion.

Tim Draper Twitter: https://twitter.com/timdraper

Tony gallippi - Co-founder of the BitPay processing service. Tony acquired 34,000 MTC in 2011. In addition to owning bitcoins, the value of his share in BitPay is more than $ 100 million. Gallippi firmly believes in bitcoin and continues to increase his assets in cryptocurrency.

Twitter Tony Gallippi: https://twitter.com/tonygallippi

Mikri Jean and Cihan Wu - Founders of the mining company Bitmain. The Chinese company is a leading manufacturer and developer of ASIC chips that are used for cryptocurrency mining and owns two mining pools: Antpool and BTC.com, as well as the HashNest cloud mining service. According to various estimates, Jean and Wu own 40,000 BTC, which are wholly owned by them.

Twitter Mikri Jean: https://twitter.com/micreez

Twitter Cihan Wu: https://twitter.com/jihanwu

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