Just like any other industry, crypto is filled with various kinds of influencers and significant figures. Some of them are known to be popular pioneers in digital assets, while some have gained legitimacy much more recently through their personal success. Anyone who believes that they understand crypto should know these names and why they’re significant. Let’s go over some of the most popular figures in the world of cryptocurrency.

This is not financial investment advice.

This article discusses prominent figures in the cryptocurrency industry.

Nick Szabo

First up on our list of the most popular people in the crypto world is none other than Nick Szabo. Szabo is a colossal figure not just only in the cryptocurrency community but also for his work in cryptography and digital currency in general. The coinage of the term “smart contract” is attributed to him. Smart contracts are a central part of the Ethereum blockchain ecosystem. His digital currency “bit gold” was in many ways a precursor to Bitcoin. Though it was never implemented, bit gold shared a lot of similarities with the core protocols on which Bitcoin is built on.

With degrees in both computer science and law, and an intense fascination in the history of money, it is no surprise Nick Szabo was ahead of his block time. His ideas on the history and future of money, including the role of cryptocurrency, are well documented on his blog. Satoshi acknowledged that Bitcoin was based on Nick’s work, but many believe that Satoshi is, in fact, Nick Szabo. Although he has been accused of being Nakamoto many times before, Szabo continues to deny each claim and further emphasizes the notion that there will be no further conjecture on who Nakamoto really is, given that he wanted to stay anonymous since the beginning.

Tim Draper

Tim Draper is a renowned VC and angel investor. He is the founder of Draper Association which specializes in seed-stage investment in “extraordinary projects.” Tim has been an avid participant in the crypto space. He bought 3,000 Bitcoin after US Marshalls shut down the notorious Silk Road platform. Tim is something of a lucky charm for ICOs as his association with any ICO often leads to a successful crowdfunding exercise. He backed the Tezos project in 2017 that raised over $200 million. He also supported and invested in the Bancor project which raised over $150 million. Tim has also been vocal in calls for the SEC to provide a favorable regulatory framework for ICOs and cryptos in general.

Draper has been pretty bullish of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency as a whole going into the future. In fact, he has predicted Bitcoin’s price to hit a whopping $250,000 by 2022! It’s worth noting that Draper had predicted Bitcoin’s price to surpass $10,000 three years ago, and sure enough, it did so and even more. As the dust continues to settle, Draper had held off on making any more predictions which could very well send the crypto community into a frenzy.

Draper continues to see great potential for cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology, as he made clear at the Intelligence Squared debate in New York at the end of April. In a debate with crypto-critics, Draper said that the magnitude and importance of bitcoin and the technology behind it surpass major technological epochs such as the Iron Age, the Renaissance, and the Industrial Revolution.

Hal Finney

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Next on our list of influential crypto personas is Hal Finney. Although Finney passed away in 2014, many believe him to be the anonymous Satoshi Nakamoto. In addition to Szabo, Finney is another early adopter and contributor who many believe has the credentials to be THE Satoshi Nakamoto. Finney was a computer scientist and pre-Bitcoin cryptographic pioneer who was reportedly the first person, other than Satoshi Nakamoto, to use Bitcoin’s software, file bug reports, and make improvements.

He also built the first anonymous remailer, the first proof-of-work based digital cash system, RPOW (Reusable Proofs of Work), and of course received the very first Bitcoin transaction sent by Satoshi Nakamoto. In 2014, Finney died of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and was cryopreserved by the Alcor Life Extension Foundation.

Vitalik Buterin

Vitalik Buterin is the co-founder and inventor of Ethereum. He started his career in crypto as a writer and is one of the co-founders of Bitcoin magazine, the first serious publication dedicated to cryptocurrencies. Buterin released the Ethereum whitepaper in 2013 and received $100,000 from the Thiel Fellowship to start working on the project. Next, he dropped out of college and suspended the writing for Bitcoin Magazine. As time progressed, Ethereum would soon take off and become what it is today.

Ethereum is now the second biggest cryptocurrency and Buterin now holds some of the most influence in the crypto community. In fact, he has such a major influence that a death hoax created by 4chan last year made Ethereum drop from $300 to $260 in a space of hours.

Charlie Lee

Charlie Lee has been involved in the crypto space since the early beginnings and is the creator of Litecoin (LTC), one of the first ever altcoins. In 2013 he took the position of technical director at Coinbase but retired in 2017 to focus solely on Litecoin’s promotion and development. Lee sent a shockwave across the crypto world when he stated that he was selling all his LTC. In fact, he sold them late last year when it was at its peak ($300+) and stated that he was trying to financially distance himself from the project so that no-one would suspect him to manipulate the market.

In an interview with Cointelegraph this February, Lee had further characterized the move to sell as his “first step” away from the project, a stance he later reaffirmed as necessary in order to ensure that Litecoin would become a fully decentralized cryptocurrency, true to the spirit of Bitcoin’s anonymous character with its notoriously absent creator, Satoshi Nakamoto.

Conclusion

The world of crypto is filled with notable figures who have the ability to significantly impact the market. From Draper to Nakamoto to Buterin, the list goes on for these kinds of programmers and influencers who have been involved since the beginning. Although there have been numerous new influencers who have quickly gained support, these are some of the most popular names to know for anyone who claims to be in touch with what’s happening in crypto.