Cryptocurrencies are fastly becoming part of our life thanks to the work of thousands of individuals that are pushing hard to see masses adopting crypto. In this piece, I have compiled a list of the most influential people in crypto today based on their contributions to the industry. From developers and entrepreneurs to content creators, below are the top 30 influencers within the blockchain industry. 1. CZ Binance , also known as CZ, is the founder and CEO of Binance, one of the worlds leading cryptocurrency exchanges. A passionate crypto fan, Zhao was part of the team that developed Blockchain.info and also served as the CTO at OkCoin before launching Binance. With Zhao at the helm, Binance has grown from strength to strength setting the standard for other cryptocurrency exchanges. Changpeng Zhao 2. Roger Ver Also, known as Bitcoin Jesus, is one of the earliest investors and promoters of the leading cryptocurrency. He is one of the founders of the Bitcoin Foundation. Ver was pro-Bitcoin split in 2017, which saw the birth of Bitcoin Cash after a clash of ideas among the leading lights within the Bitcoin network. Since that he denounced Bitcoin claiming BCH to be the true Bitcoin. Like him or not, his contribution to the crypto cause can not be underestimated. Roger Ver 3. Jihan Wu is the co-founder and CEO of Bitmain, which is the leading manufacturer of Bitcoin mining devices in the world. Bitmain has dominated the Bitcoin mining industry with its ASIC miner chips and, as such, has amassed Wu great wealth. Before Bitmain, Wu was an angel investor in Kaomao, a startup that produced Bitcoin mining hardware. Wu 4. Sergei Khitrov is a veteran businessman who has founded several tech companies, including the Jets.Capital and Listing.Help a platform that helps crypto projects get listed on cryptocurrency exchanges. The platform onboarded over 500 clients having partnerships with over 100 crypto exchanges. At the same time, Sergey is the main organizer of one of the biggest crypto events all over the world, . to summarize, his influence is quite significant within the industry. Sergei Khitrov Blockchain Life 5. Carl Eric Martin is a Swedish YouTuber who is famous for creating content about Bitcoin. He has one of the fastest-growing crypto channels on YouTube right now with over 85,000 subscribers. His channel focuses on bitcoin’s price analysis and reviews of some crypto wallets available for all crypto users. Also known as The Moon Carl, he began posting Bitcoin videos daily at the age of 24. Carl Martin 6. Eman Pulis is the founder and CEO of SiGMA - a Malta-based company that organizes annual blockchain and IGaming events. SIGMA is home for over 14,000 attendees with over 500 sponsors, exhibitors, and world-class speakers. He is also the founder of the Malta AI & Blockchain Summit, where leaders in both industries meet to discuss the potential of the world-changing technologies. Eman Pulis 7. Jack Dorsey is the founder of Twitter, one of the leading social networks in the world. He has been an avid supporter of crypto. He believes in the near future, the internet will have its own native currency, and hopefully, it will be Bitcoin. Dorsey is also the founder of Square, a payments app, and recently he launched a crypto division for the app know as the Cash App. The newly established app helps newbies buy BTC easily. The Twitter CEO is now leading initiatives that will see the mass adoption of BTC in Africa. Recently he announced that Twitter has a dedicated team that is developing a decentralized platform that will act as the standard for social media. Jack Dorsey 8. Marvin Steinberg is the founder of Steinberg Invest, a company that helps startups to raise funds and also scale. Seasoned businessman who has a proven track record of building and partnering with innovative startups in many fast-growing industries, including the energy sector and now cryptocurrencies. Steinberg also owns CPI technologies, which is one of the biggest security token offerings (STO) providers in the world. The company helps different companies carry out successful STOs that are worth millions of dollars. Marvin Steinberg 9. Tachat Igityan is a serial entrepreneur and blockchain enthusiast. He is the founder and CFO of DeStream, an emotional-based financial platform that serves steamers and eSports that allows users to support their favorite content creators through donations. Tachat Igityan 10. Vladimir Nosov is the co-founder and CEO of WhiteBIT - an advanced digital asset trading platform focusing on security. In the past 2 years, he gathered a team of more than 100 specialists in the field of blockchain, placing the company among the largest players on the market. But the team does not stop just there: it continues to develop solutions for different areas of the industry prioritizing the mass adoption of blockchain technology. Vladimir Nosov 11. Thiago Cesar is the CEO of Transfero Swiss AG, a company that specializes in cryptocurrencies and digital assets investment products. Last year he spearheaded the launch of BRZ token, a stablecoin that is paired with Brazilian real. BRZ is the first stable coin launched in an emerging country, and so far, trading volumes via OTC are above $1 million daily. Before his current position, he served as the CEO of Bit.One. Thiago Cesar 12. Vitalik Buterin is the co-founder of the world’s most popular smart contract platform, Ethereum. Vitalik has been involved with crypto for a while now, having gained interest early through Bitcoin. Earlier on, he served as the chief editor of Bitcoin Magazine, which covers developments within the blockchain industry before moving to launch Ethereum, which helps developers build decentralized applications (DApps). As of the time of writing, Ethereum is the second most valuable digital asset with a market cap of over $20 billion. Vitalik Buterin 13. Mamadou Kwidjim Toure is one of the most influential people in Africa. He is the founder of the Africa 2.0 Foundation which was the pioneer in designing, influencing and driving a vision for Africa through Advocacy and concrete scalable Impact Initiatives. After a career at the World Bank Group Mamadou left his role as a Managing Director for GE Africa investment arm to start the (formerly Ubuntu Coin), a platform hosting an ecosystem allowing its community to own and transact digital assets backed by ethical gold. The company has designed a shared economy model promoting people, profit planet and where all members of the community are eligible for shares in the company. Ubuntu Tribe has signed a partnership with 30 countries to be preferred digital currency and help set up a Panafrican Digital Asset Framework. Mamadou Ubuntu Tribe 14.Charlie Lee is a former Google engineer and the creator of Litecoin. He currently serves as the managing director of the Litecoin Foundation. Previously Lee served as the director of engineering at Coinbase. Litecoin is currently the 7th largest digital asset by market cap valued at over $4 billion. In 2017, Lee sold all his LTC holdings to avoid a conflict of interest as he steered Litcoin forward. Lee 15. Brandon Chez is a computer programmer and the founder of CoinMarketCap.com, a site that tracks the price of Bitcoin and many other cryptocurrencies. The site has grown to be the heartbeat of the crypto industry. To give you an idea of Chez's influence, in 2018, he wiped out $100 billion off the total crypto market capitalization after suddenly delisting South Korean exchanges without warning. Brandon Chez 16. Alexander Belov is heavily involved with the crypto industry. As an investor he participated in funding of the following projects: Perlin, POA network, and EdenChain. At the same time, he is a part of Beeminer - company which was the first to patent immersion cooling systems for mining. Alexander Belov 17. Bruce Jeong is a veteran entrepreneur who has a mission to change the world by providing the best crypto and blockchain solutions. He resigned from the position of CEO at TNC Group to focus on creating smart crypto cities for our future. Additionally, he is creating a Blockchain hub project. Bruce Jeong 18. Peter Smith is the co-founder and CEO of Blockchain.com. The company is one of the most popular online crypto wallets in the world, with millions of users around the globe. Smith’s involvement in crypto doesn’t stop there as he is in charge of Blockchain Principal Strategies, which serves as an institutional platform that exposes institutional investors to cryptocurrencies. Smith 19. Brian Armstrong is the founder and CEO of Coinbase, one of the leading cryptocurrency exchanges in the world. The exchange is reported to hold Bitcoin worth over $7 billion in its cold wallet. Over the years, Coinbase has helped millions of people around the world buy and sell digital currencies safely, playing a crucial part in the crypto ecosystem. Brian Armstrong 20. Joseph Lubin is the founder of ConsenSys, a blockchain company that develops and invests in decentralized applications and software for the Ethereum ecosystem. Lubin is also the co-founder of Ethereum. He previously worked for Goldman Sachs, Blacksmith Software Consulting, and eMagine before venturing into crypto. Joseph Lubin 21. Brendan Blumer is the CEO of Block.one, the company behind EOSIO, used by the developer community to create EOS, and which is responsible for developing the EOS platform. He got into crypto in 2016 after meeting Daniel Larimer, and together, they established the open-source software company which publishes high-performance blockchain technologies. Before venturing into crypto, Blumer was involved with real estate through Okay.com, a platform that shared data among real estate brokers in Asia. Brendan Blumer 22. Catherine Coley is the CEO of Binance US, the arm of Binance, which caters to crypto users based in the United States. Before joining Binance, she was the head of XRP Institutional Liquidity at Ripple. Her career began in 2011 as a foreign exchange analyst in Hong Kong for Morgan Stanley before moving to Silicon Valley Bank, where she served as a foreign exchange advisor. Catherine Coley 23. Gavin Andresen is a software developer who was entrusted by Satoshi Nakamoto as the lead developer of Bitcoin. In 2012 he founded the Bitcoin Foundation, which supports the development of the Bitcoin currency. In 2014 he left his software development role and now serves as the chief scientist for the foundation. Before getting involved with Bitcoin, he developed 3D graphics and virtual reality software. Gavin Andresen 24. Kris Marszalek is the CEO and co-founder of Crypto.com, a platform that hosts a wide range of crypto products and whose aim is to increase crypto adoption around the globe. Marszalek founded the platform since he believes it’s a basic human right for every individual to be able to control their money, identity, and data. Currently, Crypto.com has more than 1 million users. Kris Marszalek 25. Chris Larsen is one of the richest people in crypto with an estimated net worth of over $4.6 billion. He is the executive chairman and co-founder of Ripple. Larsen has been an advocate of financial privacy and has co-founded several startups in Silicon Valley. Chris Larsen 26. Chris Dixon is a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, a private venture capital firm that invests in both upcoming startups and established companies. He heads the cryptocurrency division of the firm and recently announced the launch of his own crypto startup school that will teach future founders how to build tech startups. He also serves on the Coinbase board of directors. Chris Dixon 27. Tyler Winklevoss is one of the co-founders of the Gemini cryptocurrency exchange, where he serves as the CEO. He is an Olympic rower and crypto investor through the Winklevoss Capital Management firm. Lately, Tyler has been pushing for the approval of a Bitcoin ETF after having launched WinkDex, which will serve as the BTC price index for the ETF. Tyler Winklevoss 28. Jed McCaleb is an American programmer and entrepreneur who has co-founded several crypto projects, including Mt.Gox, Ripple, and Stellar. Currently, he serves as the CTO at Stellar. In 2017 he launched Lightyear.io, which is tasked with building the Stellar network. Lightyear is pushing for XLM to become a global payment and currency exchange. As such, the influence of McCaleb in the cryptocurrency world can not be underestimated. Jed McCaleb 29. David Marcus is leading Facebook’s crypto initiative. The former president of PayPal leads the Libra team, which is trying to create a digital currency that will be used by Facebook’s billions of users. He has been involved with crypto for a while now and is a member of the Coinbase board of directors since 2017. David Marcus 30. Eric Voorhees is the founder of ShapeShift, a company that allows users to trade several different digital assets through web and mobile platforms. Currently, he serves as the CEO of the company. Before launching Shapeshift, Voorhees was a partial owner of SatoshiDICE and also served as the head of marketing and communication at BitInstant. Erik Voorhees Disclaimer: I do not have any vested interest in any of the mentioned projects. The views and opinions expressed are those of the author and is not investment advice. Do your research.
