Crypto industry was built by people and decisions of some of them influence the whole industry. Here is the list of people whose contribution made a significant impact on blockchain and cryptocurrencies. These people lead the industry through all the challenges or undermine its reputation.



Satoshi Nakamoto

Satoshi Nakamoto is probably the most mysterious and influential crypto figure. In October 2008 Satoshi published a paper “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System” and in January 2009 he launched the Bitcoin Network. Bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency that exists independently, without a central bank or government regulations that makes it a revolutionary currency.

As far as Satoshi Nakamoto’s personality – the general public still doesn’t know who he/she is. In fact, it’s just a pseudonym of a person or a group of developers who introduced the idea of Bitcoin to the world. One of the alleged Bitcoin developers is Hal Finney – a former developer for PGP Corporation and the person who made the first Bitcoin transaction. Unfortunately, Finley suffered from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and passed away in 2014.

Another supposed Satoshi is Dorian Nakamoto, Japanese American with Satoshi Nakamoto birth name. Dorian lived in the same town with Finley for ten years but denied any involvement in Bitcoin development. Along with Dorian, Nick Szabo, computer scientist, and crypto enthusiast was also suspected to be Satoshi, but he objects all the suspicions.

Buy BTC on Changelly

However, some people would like to be known as a Bitcoin developer. Self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto, Craig Wright, computer scientist, and entrepreneur, insists on the fact that he is a BTC code owner and registered its copyrights. However, Bitcoin software has an MIT license that makes it an open code and available to everyone. However, Craig Wright is full of contradictions, and we are telling about him below.

Craig Wright

Craig Wright is an Australian computer scientist and one of the Bitcoin and crypto pioneer. He worked in such corporations as OzEmail, K-Mart and the Australian Securities Exchange. Wright was also the CEO of Hotwire Preemptive Intelligence Group technology firm which aspiration was to build the first Bitcoin bank. However, it failed in 2014 due to issues with Australian taxes laws. Later Craig has been working as a part of the Bitcoin Cash developers team, but due to irreconcilable differences, he then assembled a team of like-minded people to run his own cryptocurrency namely Bitcoin SV (Satoshi Version) which appeared as a result of the Bitcoin Cash hard fork that occurred back in November 2018.

Buy Bitcoin SV on Changelly

However, the main Wright’s ambition is to prove he is an actual developer of Bitcoin. One of the sustaining facts that he is a Bitcoin developer is that Wright made a post in his blog in 2008. The thing is that he made it just in a couple of months before Satoshi Nakamoto published Bitcoin paper. The information in the blog post was almost the same as info in BTC document.

Vitalik Buterin

Vitalik Buterin is a Russian-Canadian developer who moved with his family to Canada in childhood. Vitalik was always fond of software development. When he was 17, his father told him about cryptocurrency, and it grew into his lifework. Already in 2011, he became a writer, contributor and then a co-founder of Bitcoin Magazine. Already in 2015, after two years of hard work, he launched Ethereum – a platform for developing decentralized online applications based on Ethereum blockchain.

Buy ETH on Changelly

For today, Vitalik is one of the most influential people in the crypto industry. On November 2018 he received a doctorate from the Faculty of Business and Economics of the University of Basel. Now he keeps working on the Ethereum development and crypto industry evolvement.

Changpeng Zhao

CZ life can be called an American dream that came true. He was born in a province in China and moved to Canada with his parents in 80s’. In his teenage years, he had to work in McDonald’s to help his family to keep afloat. However, his job didn’t affect his study, and after graduation from college, Zhao starts working for the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Due to his brilliant mind and hard work he built a successful career and worked for Bloomberg Tradebook as a futures trading software developer, founded Fusion Systems – a high-frequency trading system, and served as chief technology officer of OKCoin.

In 2017 CZ started his crypto project – cryptocurrency exchange Binance. Today Binance is the biggest crypto exchange with 1 billion USD volume per day. In 2018 Forbes rated him as one of the wealthiest people in crypto with a fortune estimated at $1.4 billion.

Buy BNB on Changelly

Winklevoss Brothers

Winklevoss Brothers – Tyler and Cameron – co-founders of Gemini – a digital asset exchange. They are also well known as first Bitcoin billionaires and inventors of ConnectU social network.

In 2004 in cooperation with Divya Narendra, Winklevosses launched ConnectU social network. Later they were involved in a copyright judicial proceedings with Mark Zuckerberg and won the case. They invested these funds in Bitcoin and purchased 1% of all BTC supply. It appeared to be a good deal and made them the first Bitcoin billionaires.

It wasn’t the only drama that happened with twins. In 2013 they invested in Bitcoin exchange start-up BitInstant and already in 2014, BitInstant CEO was charged with money laundering. However, the brothers were passive investors and haven’t influenced on business processes.

In spite of all these scandals, Winklevoss Brothers remain respectable crypto influencers due to their gut for investing and continuous hard work.

Buy Gemini Dollar on Changelly

Justin Sun

Justin is a 29 years old former chief representative in Ripple and the founder of TRON – cryptocurrency with one of the largest market cap on the crypto market. In spite of his young age, Justin is an influential figure in crypto space with pushing twitter activity. He has already scheduled an annual charity lunch with Warren Buffet. This conversation may positively affect the whole crypto industry by increasing the level of trust and acceptance among general consumers.

Buy Tron on Changelly

John McAfee

John McAfee is one of the most controversial people in the crypto industry. He has build reputation of a talented and skilled software developer working in such world-famous corporations as Nasa, Univac, and Xerox. In 1987 he founded McAfee Associates – one of the biggest dedicated security technology company. Hackers are trying to hack his personal computers constantly due to his cutting edge developments in the anti-virus field. As McAfee claims, it’s an honor for a hacker.

Despite McAfee’s merits, his behavior and rhetorics are of great concern. In 2009, after the global financial crisis, his fortune had declined from $100 million to $ 4million. Thus, he had to move to Belize due to low taxes in this area and continue his professional work. However, already in 2012 police of Belize started an investigation for McAfee in relation to the murder of Gregory Viant Faull, McAfee neighbor. Later this year, McAfee was arrested for the illegal border crossing into Guatemala.

Today McAfee is crypto investor and influencer. He is one of the biggest Bitcoin fans: he predicted that in 2020 Bitcoin value will go up to $1 million; otherwise he will eat his penis. What is more, he was suspected in cooperation with ICO projects and paid advertising of some invaluable coins. Nonetheless, John McAfee remains one of the most quoted crypto influencers. His interviews are full of useful information for crypto newbies.

Chris Larsen

According to Forbes, the richest man in the world of cryptocurrencies was Chris Larsen, whose fortune is estimated at $7.5-8 billion. The co-co-founder of the third most popular cryptocurrency Ripple (capitalization exceeds $ 30 billion) is among the richest Americans.

In 2012, he entered into an agreement with Jed McCaleb (founder of Stellar’s platform for currency transactions) to develop and implement blockchain technology in international banking operations and issued the Ripple token (XRP), which reached a record price of $3.75 with capitalization on January 1, 2018, at $141 billion

Buy Ripple on Changelly

Joseph Lubin

Co-founder of Ethereum cryptocurrency and founder of the Consensys venture studio serving the ecosystem of this coin.

He worked in the Goldman Sachs Private Equity Management Division. After Satoshi Nakamoto created Bitcoin, he decided to start developing the infrastructure for blockchain technology, which, according to him, can serve as an organizational principle for the whole world.

Having met with Vitalik Buterin and his business partner Anthony Di Orio at the end of 2013, from January 2014 he began to actively invest in Ethereum.

Today, Lubin owns a controlling stake in ConsenSys, which provides security audits, consulting, launch of tokens and other services for other companies. Insiders of the crypto industry believe that he may be the only major holder of Ethereum, but there is no evidence of this information.

Brian Armstrong

Brian Armstrong is the founder and CEO of the California cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase. His fortune is estimated to range from $900 million to $1 billion.

Coinbase Exchange launched in 2012 and today is the most popular cryptocurrency trading platform in the United States, which allows you to exchange fiat money for cryptocurrencies. Exchange participants can buy Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ether and Litecoin using bank accounts, and large traders can place bets and offers on digital assets.

In August 2017, in the wake of cryptocurrency fever, the Coinbase application became the most downloaded in the AppStore in the United States, and the number of unique users in the month grew to 4.3 million, according to Verto Analytics.

Anthony Di Iorio

Anthony di Orio is one of the co-founders of Ethereum. His fortune is estimated at $750 million – $1 billion.

In the 2000s, he studied marketing at Ryerson University in Toronto. Recognizing Bitcoin’s innovativeness, in 2012 he founded the Toronto Bitcoin Meetup conference and at the first event met the creator of Ethereum, the Russian-Canadian programmer Vitalik Buterin, after which he became one of the main investors of the project. Since then, he has invested in many crypto assets, including Qtum, Vechain and Zcash.

Charles Hoskinson

Another co-founder of Ethereum and one of Vitalik Buterin’s seven cryptocurrency investment partners. For five years, he earned, according to various estimates, from $500 to $600 million.

He is also the founder of the IOHK project, a public blockchain platform for creating smart contracts that hosts Ada cryptocurrency. The Ethereum Classic coin also operates on IOHK, with a market capitalization of about $3 billion.

Buy ADA on Changelly

Crypto influencers’ voices are loud. Either way, you have to remember that any financial advice is under legal auction. You should not trust anyone who imposes one or another trading strategy. What is more, it’s better to trust your gut, and probably you will be the next influencer on this list.

Thank you for reading our blog! Tip us if the article was useful.

You're also welcome to ask any questions and join the discussion in the comment section below :)

Stay tuned and swap your crypto with 0.25% fee and the best crypto exchange rates at Changelly!