The most influential people in the cryptocurrency industry

Author's article by Pavel Gromov, trader and author of the telegram channel "Chief in Crypto".

INcryptocurrency industry, like any other,There are “authorities” and evangelists who strongly support, develop and promote it, exerting a significant influence on the prospects of individual projects. Such people are capable of making a project or cryptocurrency popular with one tweet and in the same way killing all its potential.

Who are they?Investors, project founders, advisors, 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 influence 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 he is called 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 an 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, an exchange hack could 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

At the initial stage of Bitcoin development, Roger Verstrongly supported the development of the main cryptocurrency and had significant influence on the market. In 2017, Roger switched to the Bitcoin Cash hard fork, which he strongly supports and promotes in the cryptocurrency community and beyond. At the end of November 2019, Ver announced the creation of a $200 million fund to support projects working to develop the Bitcoin Cash ecosystem. Information about the structure of the fund remains unknown, but it is expected that it will be created based on 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 filled with a wide variety of content, from jokes to various interesting and important news in the crypto world. Almost 600 thousand people subscribe to the Vera 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 former editor of Bitcoin Magazine. One of the most influential people in the cryptocurrency industry, despite his relatively young age.

After studying blockchain technology, Buterin decided to createnot just a cryptocurrency, but a real global computer - EVM, a platform on the basis of which it is possible to create decentralized projects based on smart contracts and solve significantly more problems than a peer to peer system such as Bitcoin is capable of. Ethereum became a new, revolutionary project in the young industry and unofficially became known as 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.

The founder of ETH came under criticism from Justin Sun along with the TRON project, whom 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 is active on Twitter and Reddit, onwhich are subscribed by almost 1 million people. The founder of Ether also gives interviews and attends 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 very 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 the Forbes magazine rating, Vitalik Buterin’s fortune is estimated at $400-500 million. According to Vitaly himself, he never owned more than 0.9% of ETH from the total issue.

 

4. Jed McCaleb

Jed McCaleb - founder of a 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 major projects that significantly influenced the development of the crypto world.

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

A few months later the idea changed and in 2010year, an exchange of the same name was launched for trading bitcoins. At the end of 2011, he sold the exchange, despite its enormous 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,one of the management positions. Remarkably, it was he who hired Chris Larens as CEO. Jed and Ripple Labs parted ways due to disagreements over the concept of the project. According to Jed's logic, XRP has become too centralized for a decentralized currency.

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 a 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 collaborations with large financial and technology corporations make Jed a de facto link between traditional businesses and cryptocurrencies.

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

At the SwellbyRipple conference, Jed criticizeda statement by Ripple Labs CTO David Schwartz that if the Ripple network were not decentralized, anyone could hack it and burn half of XRP to raise its value. To which McCaleb replied: “What are you talking about? Ripple Labs could easily burn half of its XRP supply.”

Social networks

Twitter https://twitter.com/jedmccaleb
Jed McCaleb has 28 thousand followers on Twitter. 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 assessedfrom 1 to 5 billion dollars, which also includes about 5 billion XRP tokens, which, according to an agreement with Ripple Labs, 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 working at Google, Lee first readabout Bitcoin and became seriously interested in the concept of cryptocurrencies. In 2011, he approached Michael Hern, one of the Bitcoin core developers, directly and purchased 100 BTC from him for $30. According to Charlie himself, he never sold his bitcoins. That same year, Charlie seriously thought about a cryptocurrency that would solve the problems that Bitcoin had.

In 2013, Charlie leaves Google and gets a jobat Coinbase while working on Litecoin. During its existence, the new cryptocurrency was recognized by the community as digital silver, similar to Bitcoin, which is considered digital gold. Litecoin has higher throughput than Bitcoin, faster transaction speeds and low network fees. There is a known case where $104 million was transferred in 2 minutes using LTC, and the transaction fee was only 45 cents.

In 2017, Lee left Coinbase due to the growing popularity of cryptocurrency and devoted all his energy 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 active on Twitter.He has 827 thousand followers and 14.5 thousand tweets. On his page, Charlie talks 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
More than 315 thousand people follow Brian Armstrong on Twitter. The topics of the posts mainly concern the development of the cryptocurrency industry, new technologies and Coinbase.

condition

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

 

7. Chris Larsen

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

Larsen co-founded the company in 2012OpenCoin, which began developing a new payment protocol called Ripple, based on a concept developed by Ryan Fugger. Ripple allows you to transfer money instantly and directly between two parties in seconds. The XRP token is a token representing the transferred asset. With extensive experience in various lending institutions, Chris wanted to revolutionize the payments industry, and Ripple fit the bill. 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 helpedplatform to start and develop successfully, being considered today a competitor to the international interbank system SWIFT, because thanks to its impeccable reputation, connections and other opportunities, it was able to promote Ripple among banking institutions. At the moment, Ripple is the third largest cryptocurrency by capitalization, which does not stop in its development, but is improving every day.

Impact on the cryptocurrency industry

Chris Larsen has no verbal influence on the industry.has, because like Buterin he is very careful in his statements, which is not surprising, given his vast and rich experience in business. Larsen frequently speaks at various conferences, schools and universities.

The businessman was not seen making loud statements,which would somehow have an impact on other projects or Ripple, but quite often “fights off” attacks from the community who accuse the company of large sales of XRP, which negatively affect the coin’s rate. In addition, class action lawsuits were filed against Ripple, which, according to Larsen, have no real basis.

Social networks

Twitter: https://twitter.com/chrislarsensf
Chris is on Twitter, where heHe is subscribed to by more than 35 thousand people, where he actively conducts conversations with both subscribers and “colleagues”, writes about the news and achievements of the Ripple Labs company. On November 22, 2019, he revealed that thanks to the spike in the price of XRP in late 2017, and with the help of a non-operating charitable foundation, they were able to distribute over $25 million in highly effective financial support to low-income countries such as Senegal, Kenya, Nigeria and Myanmar.

condition

Chris' net worth is estimated at $4.5 billion, including 5.2 billion XRP tokens, as well as assets of the company Ripple Labs. In 2017, when the value of XRP exceeded $3 per coin, Forbes estimated Larsen's net worth at $59 billion, making him the 5th richest person in the world, ahead of Mark Zuckerberg.

 

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. By personal example, they proved the promise 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's 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 Gemini cryptocurrency exchange.

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 famous American investor andentrepreneur, co-founder of Ethereum and founder of ConsenSys, which engages in venture investments in projects within the Ethereum ecosystem. The company employs 1,200 people and has a portfolio of 48 startups.

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 provideda strong influence on the development of the cryptocurrency industry, having invested in many projects, including Ethereum. As the cryptocurrency market recovers and the value of projects increases, ConsenSys will again become a very rich fund, but at the moment, most of the projects have brought 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 publishes mainly information related to ConsenSys and related projects. 111 thousand people have subscribed to 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 Block's CTO.one, co-founder of BitShares, EOS and Steemit. Since the advent of Bitcoin, Dan has shown interest in it and has repeatedly had contact with its creator, Satoshi Nakamoto. But they did not have a fruitful cooperation, what caused the conflict is unknown, 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, I’m 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 does not have a strong influence on the industryprovides, in addition to those projects in which he is directly involved, especially in EOS. Since EOS ranks 7th 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 follow the work on the project. Larimer is, to a certain extent, a marker whose actions and actions can have a significant impact on the EOS rate.

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 assessed the potential of blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies, I decided to continue investing in Bitcoin, purchasing the coin in large quantities of 5,000 BTC. Some of them were sold at a rate of $258, but the exact number of coins sold is unknown. Several sources claim that his wallet currently holds 111,114 BTC.

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

 

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

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

 

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

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

 

Barry Silbert— founder of Digital Currency Group.One of the early investors in cryptocurrencies. In 2014, he acquired 48,000 BTC at a price of $350 per 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 the invested capital by 4 times.

Barry Silbert's Twitter: 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's Twitter: https://twitter.com/timdraper

 

Tony gallippi— co-founder of the processing service BitPay.Tony purchased 34,000 BTC in 2011. In addition to owning Bitcoin, his stake in BitPay is worth over $100 million. Gallippi is a strong believer in Bitcoin and continues to increase his holdings in the 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 mining cryptocurrencies and owns two mining pools: Antpool and BTC.com, as well as the cloud mining service HashNest. According to various estimates, Zhan and Wu own 40,000 BTC, which is entirely theirs.

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

Jihan Wu's Twitter: https://twitter.com/jihanwu

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