Top 10 Business Gurus of Crypto

There have been so many great people in the crypto industry. There are also people who only create noise. Previously, we named Top 10 Tech people who have made significant contributions to the crypto industry.

Technology, however, can not survive alone. It needs backing from a business. These two combine to form a go-to-market strategy. In this article, we will talk about the Top 10 business people who shaped the Bitcoin and Blockchain space.

1.   Jack Dorsey

Jack Dorsey is one of the most loved people in the crypto space. He is also one of the most powerful. Dorsey is the co-founder and CEO of Twitter.

Dorsey has been very vocal about his support for Bitcoin. Apart from the high visibility that he gives to Bitcoin, his other notable contributions include

  • Founding Square Crypto. Square Crypto concentrates on open standards for decentralized processes across social platforms. The company also contributes to open source projects.
  • Square Crypto recently introduced the Lightning Development Kit. It also won a patent for real-time crypto to fiat swaps.
  • Dorsey attended a Bitcoin meetup and met Bitcoin business owners in Ghana during his recent Africa Visit.
  • Twitter recently introduced a bitcoin symbol as an emoji, appearing automatically after “#bitcoin” or “#btc.”

2.   Michael Arrington

Michael Arrington is a cryptocurrency investor. He is the founder of Arrington XRP Capital. Arrington XRP Capital is a digital asset management firm in blockchain-based capital markets. Arrington also founded TechCrunch, Zip.ca, and Pool.com. His venture investments include Uber, Airbnb, and Pinterest.

Magazines such as Times Magazine, Wired and Forbes have named Arrington one of the most powerful people on the Internet. Important investments of Arrington Capital in the field of crypto include:

  • Algorand
  • Celer Network
  • Aergo
  • Fantom Protocol
  • Nucypher
  • Nexo
  • Blockstack
  • XRP

3.   Brian Armstrong

Brian Armstrong co-founded Coinbase in June 2012. Armstrong’s main contribution to the industry is to bring trust and transparency to crypto investors. Coinbase has made significant contributions to accelerating global adoption for crypto.

  • Coinbase had a million users as early as 2014
  • It acquired the “blockchain explorer” service Blockr, the “web bookmarking company” Kippt and “blockchain intelligence platform” Neutrino
  • It partnered with Overstock, Dell, Expedia, Dish Network, and Time Inc. allowing them to accept bitcoin payments.
  • Added Bitcoin payment processing capabilities to the traditional payment companies Stripe, Braintree, and PayPal.
  • Launched a U.S.-based Bitcoin exchange for professional traders called Coinbase Exchange.
  • Coinbase obtained the BitLicense and licensed to trade in Ethereum and Litecoin from the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS).
  • Coinbase Ventures invested in Compound Labs, a start-up building Ethereum smart contracts similar to money markets.

4.   Chris Dixon

Chris Dixon is an internet entrepreneur and investor. He is a general partner at the venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz. Dixon joined VC superpower, Andreessen Horowitz, in 2013.

a16z crypto (Andreessen Horowitz) is a $350M venture fund that invests in crypto companies and protocols. a16z crypto fund holds investments for 10+ years. This brings trust to the projects they support. a16z crypto also provides operational support to entrepreneurs. Under Dixon’s guidance, a16z crypto has made some solid investments. Major investments of a16z crypto include:

  • Coinbase
  • Dapper
  • Dfinity
  • dY/dX
  • Filecoin
  • Harbor
  • Libra
  • Maker
  • Oasis Labs

5.   Winklevoss Twins

Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, popularly known as the Winklevoss twins are considered as the first Bitcoin billionaires. They claim to own nearly 1% of all Bitcoin in circulation. Their notable contributions include:

  • They founded the venture capitalist firm, Winklevoss Capital. The firm has actively invested in major crypto projects including,
    • Ethereum
    • Tezos
    • Zcash
    • BlockFi
    • com
    • Oasis Labs
  • The brothers led a seed-funding round for the Bitcoin payment processor, BitInstant.
  • They launched Winkdex, a financial index that tracks the price of Bitcoin.
  • The also launched Gemini Exchange. Gemini is a next-generation Bitcoin exchange based in New York City.
  • Gemini acquired the Nifty Gateway platform, which enables users to buy and manage non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

6.   Jesse Powell

Jesse Powell is the co-founder and CEO of Kraken. He is an expert in virtual currencies, online/international payments and fraud. Kraken is one of the most trusted and one of the largest Bitcoin exchanges in the world. It is also one of the earlier cryptocurrency exchanges.

Powell has been a great advocate of cryptocurrency adoption since the earlier days. When Mt. Gox was hacked, Powell traveled to Japan to assist with the investigation of lost bitcoin and the process of returning the remaining funds to creditors. Powell has been a strong critic of any attempts to regulate crypto.

7.   Brandon Chez

Coinmarketcap is the most popular website for tracking and analyzing everyone’s favorite cryptocurrencies. It is also influential in developing various analytical matrices to baseline and measure the nascent crypto industry. Brandon Chez is the founder of CoinMarketCap.

Coinmarketcap is the most-visited website in the blockchain/cryptocurrency industry with 3.6 billion sessions and 125 million active users globally. In 2018, Alexa ranked it in the Top 100 most-visited website. It continues to rank above websites like the Wall Street Journal and CNBC.

8.   Dan Morehead

Dan Morehead is the founder and CEO of Pantera Capital. Pantera Capital is an investment firm focused exclusively on ventures, tokens, and projects related to blockchain tech, digital currency, and crypto-assets. It is the first U.S. Bitcoin investment firm. Prior to founding Pantera, Morehead was Chief Financial Officer and head of macro trading at Tiger Management. He previously held executive roles at Deutsche Bank in London, Bankers Trust, and Goldman Sachs. Pantera Capital has made some excellent investments till now, the notable ones include

  • Abra
  • Bakkt
  • Blockfolio
  • Brave
  • Circle
  • Civic
  • Harbor
  • Ripple
  • Shapeshift
  • ZCash

9.   Edward Moncada

Edward Moncada is the Co-Founder and CEO of Blockfolio. Blockfolio is the market leader in mobile portfolio tracking and management for the cryptocurrency and blockchain industry. With over 6000 cryptocurrencies or blockchain assets across almost 300 exchanges, Blockfolio is a must-have among most crypto investors.

Moncada is an advisor to InstaDApp and a former DASH Foundation Board Member. Moncada and his team were instrumental in helping Dash (then Darkcoin) listed on Bitfinex, back in the Summer of 2014. He also played a major role in creating the Darkcoin Foundation.

10.   Erik Voorhees

Erik Voorhees is the popular founder of ShapeShift.io, a Bitcoin and altcoin exchange company that offers global trading of a variety of digital assets via web and mobile platforms. He is a dedicated supporter of Bitcoin and is a frequent speaker at related conferences and meetings. He is associated with multiple organizations which include:

  • Development of Bitcoin wallet, KryptoKit
  • Co-founder of Bitcoin company, Coinapult
  • Founder and Partial Owner of SatoshiDICE
  • A Member of the Cryptocurrency Advisory Board at MGT Capital Investments, Inc. since June 14, 2016

You can also read about our list of hand-picked tech gurus who made a huge impact on the crypto space in the first part of our 2-article series: Top 10 Tech people who made significant contributions in developing Blockchain Technology.

Join us on Telegram to receive free trading signals.

For more cryptocurrency news, check out the Altcoin Buzz YouTube channel.

 

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.