2020 Crypto's Most Influential people
CoinDesk published its 2020 Most Influential People in Crypto list and invited readers to vote for their top five picks, and a Holdex community member brought the same poll to the Holdex community to gather its own results. The list spans 55 nominees, from DeFi founders and regulators to anonymous hackers and institutional investors, and readers were asked to reply with their choices before a November tally.
So...CoinDesk published a list of the Most Influential people in Crypto for 2020 and ask readers to choose their top 5.
I think it's be interesting to bring this to Holdex and find out what the Holdex community thinks!
Here is how this works:
- Pick your top 5
- Think if there is someone missing in the list
- Reply to this post with your top 5 from the list
(kindly just mention the number associated with the name)
- anyone who's missing. A sample reply would look like this "Here are my picks: 3, 8, 10, 12, 15 and Vitalik Buterin". Got it?
- At the beginning of November I'll publish the results.
READY?
1 Robert Leshner, Compound founder: For leading the first DeFi project to overtake MakerDAO.
2 Wang Chun, F2Pool co-founder: For encoding “History has repeated, ” on the Bitcoin halving block.
3 Stani Kulechov, Aave CEO: For changing the game of DeFi lending.
4 Peter Szilagiy: For leading Geth and providing healthy Eth 2.0 skepticism.
5 Pieter Wuille, Blockstream co-founder: For working on SegWit, Taproot and Schnorr.
6 John Wolpert, Baseline creator: For breathing life back into enterprise blockchain.
7 People’s Bank of China: For leading the charge to national digital currencies.
8 Bruce Fenton, managing director at Chainstone Labs: For sounding off on coronavirus early.
9 Olaoluwa "Laolu" Osuntokun, CTO of Lightning Labs: Lightning went wumbo.
10 SamCzSun, white hat hacker: For being Ethereum’s top white hat hacker.
11 Jesse Powell, Kraken CEO: For pushing through the first crypto bank.
12 Anthony Pompliano, Morgan Creek Digital co-founder: Relentless bitcoin optimist.
13 Aubrey Strobel, Lolli communications director: Because memes matter.
14 Graham Ivan Clark, teenage Twitter hacker: For bringing attention to the flaws of centralized social media companies.
15 The anon who called out Craig Wright by signing a Bitcoin address CSW claimed to own.
16 Alex Mesmej, creator of $ALEX: For riding the wave of self tokenization.
17 Su Zhu, Three Arrows Capital CEO: For insightful analysis.
18 Brian Brooks, Acting Comptroller of the Currency: For taking charge at the OCC.
19 Hayden Adams, Uniswap founder: For inventing one of DeFi’s critical protocols.
20 Pavel Durov, Telegram CEO: For battling the SEC
21 Udi Wertheimer, Reckless VR: For bridging the gap between crypto and virtual reality.
22 Danny Ryan: For being Ethereum 2.0’s lead developer.
23 Brendon Chez, CoinMarketCap founder: For selling CMC in one of crypto’s largest ever M&A deals.
24 Chef Nomi, SushiSwap creator: For forking Uniswap, creating discussion around governance tokens and VC funding.
25 Blue Kirby, Yearn cheerleader: For teaching us the importance of having “skin in the game.”
26 Alan Silbert, INX CEO: For leading the charge on blockchain-based IPOs.
27 "Defi Degens”: For seeking yield everywhere.
28 Balaji S. Srinivasan: For being an early siren for the coronavirus pandemic.
29 Brian Armstrong, Coinbase CEO: For taking an “apolitical” stand.
30 Patrick Byrne, former Overstock CEO: For continued support of tokenization.
31 Hester “Crypto Mom” Peirce, Securities and Exchange Commission Commissioner: For being one of the most prominent crypto advocates among the U.S. regulators
32 Christine Lagarde, European Central Bank president: For directing Europe towards a digital euro.
33 Paolo Ardoino, Tether CTO: For being the face of the world's largest stablecoin.
34 Jerome Powell, Federal Reserve chairman: For ushering in an unprecedented level of stimulus, indirectly proving Bitcoin’s core thesis.
35 Kristin Smith, executive director of the Blockchain Association: For being crypto’s advocate in Washington, D.C.
36 Mike Belshe, BitGo CEO: For leading the top custodian for BTC on ETH and BitGo’s "Prime Broker" status.
37 Juan Benet, Protocol Labs CEO: For launching Filecoin.
38 Gavin Wood, Polkadot founder: For launching his second top 5 blockchain, Polkadot, this year.
39 Paul Tudor Jones, hedge fund billionaire: For giving institutional weight to BTC bag holding.
40 Michael Saylor, MicroStrategy CEO: Unabashed bitcoin bull, leads the first non-crypto, publicly traded companies to put bitcoin on its balance sheet.
41 Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX CEO: For creating a cornerstone derivatives exchange.
42 Hive, hardfork of Steem: For forking away from Justin Sun’s hostile takeover.
43 Financial Action Task Force: For pushing through the “Travel Rule.”
44 Muneeb Ali, Blockstack CEO: For building Bitcoin’s answer to Web 3.0.
45 Brad Garlinghouse, Ripple CEO: For bringing charges against YouTube.
46 Chris Giancarlo, former CFTC chief: For bringing the digital dollar to the halls of Congress.
47 Alan Lane, Silvergate Bank CEO: For running crypto’s bank.
48 Dan Elitzer, Yam.Finance creator: For providing the rocket fuel for the vegetable coin bull market.
49 Arthur Hayes, BitMEX CEO: For remaining out of grasp.
50 Cami Russo, Defiant creator: For being the DeFi and Ethereum whisperer.
51 Roham Gharegozlou, Dapper Labs CEO: For breathing life back into NFTs.
52 Ryan Selkis, Messari founder: For building one of crypto’s most reliable data aggregators.
53 J.K. Rowling, author: For bringing crypto Twitter together and tearing us apart.
54 Andre Cronje, Yearn.Finance creator: For pioneering DeFi “fair launches” and yield farming.
55 None of the above.