In this article, we take a look at some of the most influential people in the crypto world and what they did to shape the industry in 2021.

Indeed, 2021 will be a busy year for the crypto industry. Many milestones have been reached in the past 12 months. Many institutional investors use digital assets as protection against inflation, especially Bitcoin.

The irreplaceable tokens are preferred by celebrities and retail investors, with billions of dollars trading in various digital collectibles.

The pioneering development of the industry is the result of the contributions of various groups of participants, including private and institutional investors as well as blockchain developers, some of the most individual. The decision played a bigger role in fueling the widespread adoption of cryptocurrencies by 2021.

To say goodbye to the old year, let’s take a look back at the 10 most influential figures in the crypto space and their amazing contributions to the development of the industry.

It is important to note that this list does not rank anyone by contribution or any other factor.

Samuel Bankman-Fried (SBF)

Sam Bankman-Fried – Founder and CEO of FTX Exchange

Sam Bankman-Fried has been an active contributor to the cryptocurrency sector. He is one of the pioneers connecting the relationship between crypto and sports in the United States.

His exchange FTX has signed a long-term cooperation with the American professional basketball team Miami Heat. Accordingly, the club changed the name of their stadium to FTX Arena and various crypto-related advertisements were displayed on the stadium’s screens during the matches.

FTX will also become the official Major League Baseball (MLB) exchange, which gives cryptocurrencies a great opportunity to hit the mainstream market.

Follow reviews According to Forbes, Bankman-Fried is the richest 29-year-old billionaire in the world, with a net worth of $ 22.5 billion. His success in becoming the world’s richest young billionaire came after FTX raised $ 450 million, bringing the company’s value to an estimated $ 25 billion.

Michael Saylor

Michael Saylor – CEO of MicroStrategy

Michael Saylor is one of the key figures in the crypto industry in 2021. After leading his company MicroStrategy to buy Bitcoin for the first time in August 2020, the billionaire is one of the few pioneers in the adoption of digital assets.

Saylor advertised Bitcoin on his personal Twitter account last year and even revealed that he personally owns 17,732 BTC, which is worth over $ 832 million at the time of going to press.

Outside of Saylor’s personal archive, MicroStrategy has not missed an opportunity to buy a Bitcoin dip since its first purchase. Currently, the popular business analytics platform holds 124,392 BTC valued at $ 5.8 billion, making it the leading publicly traded company with the largest Bitcoin portfolio.

Developer hide Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC)

NFT Bored Ape Yacht Club | Source: Twitter

In addition to the particular interest in fungible assets such as Bitcoin, ETH, DOGE and SHIB, the industry is also seeing the popularity of non-fungible tokens skyrocket in 2021.

While critics still think NFT is a joke, BAYC’s anonymous developer has shown the world that the asset class is worth more than a fortune. There are 10,000 NFT BAYC collectibles, and the cheapest a dealer can buy from the collections is 52 ETH ($ 194,000).

So far, Bored Ape # 2087 remains the most expensive BAYC ever sold at a whopping 769 ETH (2.9 million US dollars). According to NFTs Street, this NFT has been sold twice in the past 5 months.

Nguyen Thanh Trung (Trung Nguyen)

Nguyen Thanh Trung – CEO of Sky Mavis and developer of Axie Infinity

2021 is indeed a great year for play-to-earn (P2E) gaming, thanks to the huge success of the popular blockchain game project Axie Infinity.

Though not a fan of blockchain in 2017, Trung Nguyen created one of the most groundbreaking P2E games to see massive gains in 2021 at $ 0.4-95.7 in the past 12 months.

Its Sky Mavis has also attracted a number of notable investors this year, including a $ 150 million Series B funding round led by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z).

Anatoly Yakovenko

Anatoly Yakovenko – founder of Solana

Solana is clearly one of the most successful blockchain projects in 2021. All of this is thanks to the contribution of the team around Anatoly Yakovenko.

Solana has become a common home for decentralized application (dApp) developers after the severe network congestion that plagued Ethereum. The widespread rollout of Solana has contributed to a spike in the price of its native SOL token, and a $ 1,000 investment in the token in January 2021 was worth $ 138,000 in September 2021.

The Total Locked Out Value (TVL) of Solana is currently $ 11.41 billion, according to DeFi Llama. But Yakovenko believes this is just the beginning. In a recent exclusive interview, the Solana founder stated that the network will grow dramatically in all aspects, including scalability, over the next five years.

Senator Cynthia Lummis

Cynthia Lummis – Member of the US Senate

Even US politicians are optimistic about cryptocurrencies in 2021. Throughout 2021, Wyoming Senator Senator Cynthia Lummis has worked tirelessly to bring Bitcoin to the mainstream, on every small occasion.

The Republican senator, who represents Wyoming, was a long-time Bitcoin advocate even before she was elected to the Senate in November 2021. Lummis increased its Bitcoin portfolio from $ 50,000 to $ 100,000, according to an October report. The Senator has always expressed his support for digital assets while firmly opposed the negative remarks made by other politicians in the country.

Last month, Lummis responded to a comment from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urging US financial institutions to embrace the technology rather than resist it.

Bobby Ong

Bobby Ong is one of the most influential people in the crypto space as of 2021. Ong co-founded the popular crypto data aggregator platform Coingecko in 2014, and the site has enjoyed great success ever since.

TM Lee (left) and Bobby Ong (Right) – Co-founder of Coinecko

From the moment Coingecko started operations with two employees including Ong and co-founder TM Lee, Coingecko has grown to a team of 16 full-time employees in 2020, and that number will increase 54% in 2021.

Coinecko is currently one of the most trusted crypto aggregators for traders, tracking over 12,000 assets and over 530 exchanges.

In an exclusive interview, Ong said the company’s goal is to encourage the adoption of cryptocurrencies in the mainstream market.

“In 10 years we predict that cryptocurrency will be mainstream and that blockchain will be used by many applications within the platform without users even realizing it.”

Changpeng Zhao (CZ)

Changpeng Zhao – Founder and CEO of Binance

Changpeng Zhao (CZ) is such a famous person in the crypto industry that almost everyone knows him well. He plays an important role in various aspects of the market from providing capital to new startups to providing a trusted platform for users to trade over 700 crypto pairs.

Binance’s chief investment officer, Chase Guo, stated in an interview last December that the exchange’s venture capital unit, Binance Labs, has incubated more than 100 crypto projects in more than 25 countries since 2009. 2018.

Although regulators from different parts of the world have cracked down on operating an unregistered cryptocurrency trading platform on the highest-volume exchange, CZ managed to help Binance avoid sanctions.

Binance scored earlier this month when it acquired an 18% stake in the private equity exchange HGX and received regulatory approvals from authorities in Canada and Bahrain.

Francis Suarez

Francis Suarez – Mayor of Miami on Bitcoin 2021

Francis Suarez, Mayor of Miami, was a key player in promoting the mass adoption of Bitcoin. Suarez made Miami a crypto-friendly city and launched a series of initiatives aimed at getting more people to accept the world’s largest cryptocurrency.

After Suarez exchanged 1% of Miami’s state reserves for Bitcoin in February, Suarez became the first US politician to be paid in BTC. The bitcoin-loving mayor also announced in an interview last month that some Miami residents will receive bitcoin for free, giving US citizens more exposure to this new asset class.

Nayib Bukele

Nayib Bukele – President of El Salvador

Nayib Bukele put his name on the page of world history in the worldwide astonishment when he made El Salvador the first country to accept Bitcoin as legal currency.

But President Bukele’s optimistic move did not stop there. The country continues to buy Bitcoin and increase its BTC reserves at the slightest opportunity.

In addition to building 20 Bitcoin schools and a mining facility in El Salvador, the president has promised that the country will also build the largest crypto-powered city in the world.

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