Cryptocurrency prices have grown over the years, from just a few pennies in 2009 to thousands of dollars per coin today. Now, they are slowly being accepted as a form of payment in institutions like AT&T, KFC, Burger King, Overstock and many more. And who’s to thank for its overgrowing success but its founders, co-founders, CEOs and so on!
There are tons of people behind successful cryptocurrencies and without them, all this wouldn’t have been possible. If you’re wondering who these people are and what they’ve contributed, Cryptoshimbum has created a list so go check it out below!
From Armstrong to Zhao: Must-know influential crypto people
Brian Armstrong
Brian Armstrong is an American investor and business executive who co-founded Coinbase, a cryptocurrency trading platform that can also be used as an e-wallet. Apart from that, this self-made billionaire also co-founded the charity platform GiveCrypto where you can donate cryptocurrency to unfortunate individuals.
Prior to all of this, he worked at IBM, Airbnb, Deloitte and established UniversityTutor.com. Now the 39-year-old is worth over US$8 billion as of 2021.
Samuel Bankman-Fried
Samuel Bankman-Fried or also known as SBF is the CEO and founder of FTX. This is a cryptocurrency exchange most popular in sports betting that has become part of a payment method on Major League basketball or MLB. And because of his success and efforts to push crypto one step up the ladder, this American entrepreneur is now the world’s richest 29-year-old billionaire. As of 2022, his worth is US$22.5 billion.
Vitalik Buterin
One of the co-founders of the second-largest cryptocurrency, Ethereum is none other than Vitalik Buterin! This Russian-Canadian programmer has been part of the crypto realm since its early years and even co-founded Bitcoin Magazine back in 2011.
In 2014, he launched Ethereum with Charles Hoskinson, Gavin Wood, Anthony Di Lorio and Joseph Lubin. The ‘decentralised mining network and software development platform wrapped into one’ named Ethereum became operational in 2015 with 65 million Ether (ETH) currency. In early 2020, his value is about $16 billion.
Jack Dorsey
The technological entrepreneur, Jack Dorsey is the former CEO and co-founder of Twitter as well as the founder and CEO of Square. This is a financial service company that invested over US$50 million or around 25% of its assets in Bitcoin back in October 2020.
Dorsay now intends to launch a new initiative called Bluesky, which will be a non-profit platform dedicated to the development of blockchain social media protocols. Now, this 49-year-old philanthropist is worth US$6.2 billion as of 2022.
Charles Hoskinson
Charles Hoskinson is an American software developer who co-founded Ethereum and Input Output HK or IOHK, a cryptocurrency research company that serves corporations, academic institutions, government agencies and so on. He is also the founder of Cardano blockchain, Cryptocurrency Research Group and is the chairman at the Bitcoin Foundation under the educational committee. Now at 34 years old, he’s worth between US$500 and US$600 million.
Kris Marszalek
Kris Marszalek is the CEO of a banking platform with over 5 million customers that offers trades, payments, Visa cards, interest savings and credit for over 80 cryptocurrencies. This company was called Manaco but after making over US$26.7 million in the first coin sale, it rebranded and changed to Cyrpto.com.
When asked why he created the company, he said ‘It’s your basic human right to control your money, data and identity.’ But before all this, he was CEO of Ensogo, an online retailer and co-founded BEECRAZY, Starline Polska and Yiyi.
Trung Nguyen
Trung Nguyen is a Vietnamese businessman who co-founded Sky Mavis and developed the crazed Axie Infinity, a ‘play-to-earn’ blockchain-based battle game where players can earn crypto when winning daily battles. Since its launch in 2018, it has caught the interest of millions of people.
And because of this game’s widespread craze, its native token AXS has risen from US$0.4 to US$95.7 last year. Nguyen also made it on CoinDesk’s list of Most Influential People in crypto for 2021.
Michael Saylor
Michael Saylor is an American entrepreneur who is also the founder, CEO and chairman of MicroStrategy, a company that offers mobile software, cloud-based services and business intelligence. It is also notable for being the largest publicly listed business intelligence company that invested over US$425 million in Bitcoin.
But apart from his mentioned achievements, this 57-year-old business executive also created Saylor Academy which provides free education. Now, Saylor is valued at US$1.5 billion as of 2022.
Anatoly Yakovenko
Solana or SOL, one of the most well-known cryptocurrencies in the world, was founded by Yakovenko. This led to the creation of decentralised applications or in other terms, dApps. And because of this crypto’s success, it increased in value over time, having a total lock value (TVL) of over US$11.41 billion today.
But that’s just the beginning for this crypto since Yakovenko believes that it can still grow in value through the years. In five years, Yakovenko believes Solana will be experiencing ‘tremendous growth in all ramifications’.
Changpeng Zhao
Changpeng Zhao or also known as CZ is the CEO of Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange in terms of trade volume. He also developed trading software at Tokyo Stock and Bloomberg Exchange and was ranked 3rd in Forbes’ Richest People in Cryptocurrency list back in 2018 but before that, he was Chief of Technology Officer at OK Coin and Head of Development at Blockchain. Now, this 44-year-old is worth over US$1.9 billion.
A growing crypto-sphere
The world of crypto as we know it today won’t be the same without these people on the list. Thanks to their achievements and contributions, the industry continues to grow, inspiring other talented individuals to show their genius and join the crypto-sphere that only continues to expand!