This week CoinDesk announced the Top 50 most influential annual list in 2023. Let’s see who is there?
Source: CoinDesk
Compiled by: Karen, Foresight News
This week, CoinDesk released its annual list of the most influential in 2023, which aims to recognize those influential people who define 2023 in the fields of digital assets and Web3.
Top 10 Most Influential Annual List of 2023
Casey Rodarmor is the founder of the Bitcoin protocol Ordinals. Ordinals are regarded as NFTs on Bitcoin, allowing data to be recorded on Bitcoin. Initially, Ordinals attracted criticism from many Bitcoin enthusiasts, but to a large extent, it gave birth to the first wave of memes on the Bitcoin network. upsurge.
Ryan Selkis is not only the founder and CEO of Messari, he has spent the past two years building a political "fundraising machine" for the Crypto industry, preparing to influence the 2024 elections. Ryan Selkis recently handed over the job to the political action committee (PAC) Fairshake. The company has about $15 million in funding, a person familiar with the matter said. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said in October that he personally donated $1 million to Fairshake and hoped the PAC could raise $50 million or more. Fairshake has begun putting those funds to work; Politico reported in November that the PAC had spent $1.2 million on television ads for House candidates in recent months.
Jenny Johnson , CEO of Franklin Templeton, an asset management firm with $1.33 trillion in assets under management, is leading the company to the forefront of the cryptocurrency space. Franklin Templeton has joined other financial giants such as BlackRock and Fidelity in applying to list a Bitcoin ETF in the United States. It also provides clients with exposure to digital assets and even has multiple interests in Ethereum, Solana and Stellar. Prove that you have a node on the blockchain.
Lido DAO democratizes ETH staking and is already dominant. But Lido DAO is either Ethereum’s bulwark against centralized control, or it may accelerate Ethereum’s trend toward centralization.
As Tether CTO, Paolo Ardoino is seeking to diversify the company’s investments. Paolo Ardoino is the most diligent person in the cryptocurrency field. On GitHub, he contributed 3,275 times this year (an average of 2-3 times a day) and 37,720 times in 2017.
As PayPal's senior vice president and general manager, Jose Fernandez da Ponte this year pushed the payment giant to release the U.S. dollar stable currency PYUSD to bring more efficient Internet-based payments to people around the world. Jose Fernandez da Ponte hypothesized, “We will see a 10x increase in the asset size of stablecoins in the next five years. We are in the early stages. I don’t think anyone has a solid position or market share. In the future we will also work on other protocols Deployment. For us, the most decisive factors are scale and throughput."
Gary Gensler (Chairman of the US SEC) is undoubtedly the most influential regulator or law enforcement official. In 2023, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) achieved a partial victory (or partial defeat, depending on how you look at it) in its case against Ripple. As for spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), although issuers and exchanges still have dreams about them, expectations that a spot Bitcoin ETF will be approved next month have never been higher.
Brian Armstrong is the exchange heavyweight who is still safe. With CZ’s departure from Binance and SBF’s imprisonment, Coinbase faces significant regulatory headwinds. In June this year, the US SEC filed a major lawsuit against Coinbase, accusing it of operating illegal securities transactions, brokers and clearing agencies. In addition, Coinbase launched its own Layer 2 blockchain Base and derivatives exchange this year, and with ETFs expected to launch in 2024, Coinbase is embracing the next wave of cryptocurrencies as it is the preferred partner for most issuers. wave.
Sam Altman is changing the world. From ChatGPT to Worldcoin, Sam Altman is ambitious and stands in the new wave. Recommended reading: " The creator of ChatGPT also has a world currency dream "
Brad Garlinghouse (co-founder of Ripple) scored a victory this year in a legal case that has major implications for the future of cryptocurrencies. On July 13, 2023, U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres ruled against the U.S. SEC’s charges against Ripple, holding that XRP itself was not a “contract, transaction, or plan” that reflected the requirements of the investment contract Howey, and Ripple’s sale of XRP through institutions constituted an unregistered Offer and sale of investment contracts.
CoinDesk's Most Influential 2023: Honors Top 40
Digital artist Refik Anadol and the Brazilian indigenous Yawanawa community released the Winds of Yawanawa series. The cumulative transaction volume of this series of NFTs reached 8759 ETH. In addition, his artificial intelligence-based video work "Unsupervised" has been acquired by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York as a permanent collection.
Rune Christensen (co-founder of MakerDAO) introduced real-world assets such as U.S. Treasury bonds onto the chain on a large scale this year.
Larry Fink (CEO of BlackRock) is one of the biggest Bitcoin believers on Wall Street. BlackRock has reignited interest in Bitcoin ETFs this year. Several other traditional financial institutions, including Fidelity, Franklin Templeton and VanEck, as well as a number of cryptocurrency native institutions such as Bitwise and Hashdex, have also followed suit and applied to list their own Bitcoin ETFs.
Jordi Baylina is the technical leader of Polygon and led the launch of Polygon zkEVM. Baylina is also an OG in the Crypto industry, having founded a white hat organization that saved money from the Ethereum DAO hack in 2016. Baylina also created the Hermez Network, a zero-knowledge rollup network that was acquired by Polygon in 2021.
Avery Ching : Co-founder and CTO of Aptos Labs.
Stefan Berger (key EU lawmaker) led the EU’s Market Regulation on Crypto-Assets (MiCA) and is currently working on a digital euro.
Cuy Sheffield (Visa’s Head of Crypto): Since 2021, Visa and Circle have been experimenting with blockchain to improve cross-border payments. In the third quarter of this year, Visa said it would send USDC to specific merchants through Solana in a new pilot.
Jesse Pollak is the head of Coinbase Layer2 Network Base. After Base launched, other exchanges followed suit.
Karl Floersch is CEO of OP Labs and oversees the launch of OP Stack.
Recommended reading: " The Feast of Optimism Is Coming?" OP Stack Ecological Project Overview 》
Lisa Neigut is a Blockstream developer who has been working on Lightning v2 since 2019 and is preparing to launch it by the end of the year.
Sergey Nazarov is the co-founder of the oracle Chainlink. Since 2022, the Chainlink platform has enabled over $9 trillion in transaction value across a wide range of verticals including banking, decentralized finance, global trade, gaming, insurance and other major industries.
Jeremy Allaire founded Circle Internet Financial in 2013 and is one of the heavyweights in the cryptocurrency space. Circle is pushing stablecoins like USDC into mainstream finance and furthering global financial inclusion while navigating the complex world of cryptocurrency regulation.
Mike Belshe is the CEO of BitGo, the leading cryptocurrency custodian. In August this year, it completed US$100 million in financing at a valuation of US$1.75 billion.
Ria Bhutoria : Partner at Castle Island Ventures. Prior to joining Castle Island Ventures as a partner, she focused on identifying potential investments in Web3.
Balaji Srinivasan , the former chief technology officer of Coinbase, bet $1 million on the imminent collapse of the U.S. dollar during the banking crisis in early 2023.
Yat Siu is co-founder and executive director of Animoca Brands. By 2023, Animoca Brands' product portfolio has expanded to 450 projects and brands.
Paul Sztorc , a Bitcoin developer, proposed BIP 300 with his Bitcoin development company Layer 2 Labs, proposing the introduction of sidechains that would allow developers to build permissionless on top of the main network, import new features, and use Bitcoin’s huge Computing power verification side network.
Racer is the co-founder of friend.tech, an overnight Web3 social platform.
Recommended reading: " Foresight Ventures: Is friend.tech a "SocialFi revolution" or a "gamble"? "
Miguel Morel is Miguel Morel, CEO of Arkham, a blockchain data analytics platform. The Intel Exchange platform launched by Arkham, which pays people to help identify wallets, caused an uproar with its so-called "dox-to-earn" plan.
Ogle : Has helped recover more than $350 million from cryptographic protocol vulnerabilities.
Caroline Ellison , SBF's ex-girlfriend and former CEO of Alameda Research, gave shocking testimony at the fraud trial against SBF.
Recommended reading: " Testify in court, Sam, Alameda and FTX in the eyes of SBF's ex-girlfriend "
" SBF's ex-girlfriend Caroline's diary exposed: Things with SBF and Alameda "
Pascal Gauthier is CEO of Ledger. Ledger launched a controversial seed restoration service this year.
Anatoly Yakovenko (co-founder of Solana Labs) and Solana are making a comeback, the SOL token has risen by more than 500% this year, and the DeFi and NFT ecosystems are also booming.
Analisa Torres is the judge who gave hope to Ripple and XRP, giving the cryptocurrency industry a shot in the arm with a partial ruling in favor of Ripple regarding XRP.
Patrick McHenry , chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee, issued a statement after PayPal announced the launch of payment stablecoins, saying that if issued under a clear regulatory framework, stablecoins are expected to become the backbone of the 21st century payment system.
Richard Teng (the new CEO of Binance) is leading Binance into a new era of compliance.
Hayden Adams is the founder of Uniswap. In June, Uniswap announced that it will soon launch a new version V4. V4 will allow new features such as customizing liquidity pools through "hooks", native support for dynamic fees, adding on-chain price orders, or dispersing large orders through the time-weighted average market maker (TWAMM). Function.
Recommended reading: " Uniswap v4 unveiled, what are the new features that let your imagination run wild?" 》
The NFT market Blur created by Pacman has subverted OpenSea's NFT market dominance. It also launched the Layer 2 network Blast with its own revenue last month and attracted US$700 million in locked positions in just two weeks.
Ravi Menon is Ravi Menon, Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). Singapore takes a balanced approach to cryptocurrency regulation. In a comprehensive proposed regulatory framework for cryptocurrency service providers, the Monetary Authority of Singapore requires Singapore’s digital payment token (DPT) service providers to do so by not offering financing, margin trading or any trading incentives. Discourage retail cryptocurrency speculation.
Luca Schnetzler is CEO of the blue-chip Pudgy Penguins family. Led by Luca Schnetzler, Pudgy Penguins has weathered the cryptocurrency winter and become a “beacon of hope” in the digital collectibles world.
In April 2022, a group led by Luca Netz will purchase control of the project and royalties from the original four co-founders of Pudgy Penguins. In May 2023, Pudgy Penguins completed US$9 million in financing, led by 1kx, and other investors included the founders of Big Brain Holdings, Kronos Research and LayerZero Labs.
At the same time, Pudgy Penguins began launching Pudgy Toys, real-life toys based on the Pudgy Penguin IP. The toys will be available in 2,000 Walmart stores in the U.S. in late September and will debut in Canadian Toys R Us stores in November.
Shytoshi Kusama (Chief Developer of Shiba Inu) and the SHIB community: With the launch of Shibarium this year, Shytoshi Kusama and the SHIB community have become a force that cannot be ignored in the DeFi and Web3 fields. The Manny Pacquiao Foundation, a non-profit organization led by the World Boxing Council champion, will utilize the Shibarium blockchain for fundraising and other operational needs.
Antonio Juliano is the CEO of dYdX. dYdX switched from Ethereum to Cosmos this year and launched dYdX Chain.
Stani Kulechov is the founder and CEO of Avara, the software development company behind Aave. This year he upgraded the Aave lending protocol, and its open source social media protocol Lens recently launched the Lens V2 version on the Polygon mainnet.
Recommended reading: " The most comprehensive collection of Lens V2 features: from combinable social networks, monetization to Profile V2 "
Caroline Pham , a commissioner at the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), has proposed a time-limited pilot program at the CFTC to regulate cryptocurrency markets and tokenization.
Ron Faris is general manager of Nike Virtual Studios, a studio dedicated to digital and virtual experiences that deepen relationships with fans and customers.
Barry Silbert is CEO of Digital Currency Group (DCG). DCG faces a series of lawsuits and complications in 2023. In November, DCG sold CoinDesk to institutional digital asset exchange Bullish, which had acquired CoinDesk in 2016 for a transaction value of US$500,000.
Elizabeth Warren is regarded as the "chief cryptocurrency critic" in Washington, DC and is skeptical of cryptocurrencies.
Martin Köppelman : Martin Köppelmann, co-founder of Gnosis Chain.
Julia Leung is the new chief executive of the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission, positioning Hong Kong as a cryptocurrency hub.
Ian Allison (CoinDesk reporter) won the George Polka Journalism Award for financial reporting for his report on Alameda Research's balance sheet.
