Important players in the crypto industry

The pace of growth of cryptocurrencies has been so rapid that it’s sometimes easy to forget that the crypto world came into being only a decade and a half ago. Taking advantage of the burgeoning digital era, cryptocurrencies positioned themselves as the next big thing in cutting-edge technology and alternative investment. In this regard, the vision and creativity of some figures in the crypto world enabled the growth and development of the crypto ecosystem, including secure cold wallet collectibles. While this industry has always been subject to multiple headwinds, these major players have attempted to transform the world of cryptocurrencies by being pioneers and ringing in changes. We will discuss a few of the key individuals and their contributions in this regard.

Satoshi Nakamoto

He is credited with being the founder of Bitcoin and also devised the first blockchain database, however the real identity of Satoshi Nakamoto remains unknown. In 2008, Nakamoto wrote a white paper describing Bitcoin as a new digital currency based on a peer-to-peer protocol and registered the domain name bitcoin.org. He continued to collaborate with other developers on the bitcoin software till mid-2010 where he made all modifications to the source code himself. Nakamoto then handed over the Bitcoin source code repository and several related domains to prominent crypto community members and stopped his active participation on the project. Satoshi Nakamoto is recognized for being a trailblazer in the crypto world and his achievements have spurred on a new generation of crypto enthusiasts to develop their own digital currencies.

Changpen Zhao

Any individual with a basic interest in crypto happenings will be familiar with Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume which is headquartered in Hong Kong. What one may not know is that the founder and CEO of Binance is Changpen Zhao, a Chinese-Canadian trading specialist who had previously worked with NYSE and Bloomberg. He leveraged his fundraising experience to make Binance a leading player in the crypto exchange space only 6 months after it was founded. One of the few specialized services provided by Binance are margin and futures trading services and the success of Binance has made Zhao one of the wealthiest representatives of the crypto industry as of today.

Vitalik Buterin

A child prodigy who was proficient with C++ and Excel macros by the age of 10, Vitalik Buterin was quick to realize the shortcomings of Bitcoin with regard to scripting language for application development. Buterin founded Ethereum, a decentralised cryptocurrency network in 2014 and made the Ethereum code open-source. This allowed multiple developers to write their own projects on the Ethereum blockchain, thus saving resources and time. He has also contributed as a developer on other open-source software projects such as DarkWallet, Bitcoin Python libraries and Egora. The name of Vitalik Buterin is synonymous with Ethereum’s success as the world’s second largest digital currency by market capitalization.

Brandon Chez

Online cryptocurrency aggregators are much in demand as these sites consolidate data from all crypto exchanges and, based on this data, provide information around capitalization, price, trading volume, percentage price change etc. CoinMarketCap is the world’s most popular crypto aggregator and its founder, Brandon Chez, oversaw the implementation of new mechanisms for combating industry-wide inflated reported volumes in 2020. Chez was also associated with the largest crash in the cryptocurrency market in history, where CoinMarketCap excluded data from a collection of South Korean exchanges as it was believed that these headline prices were being skewed higher than the average price everywhere outside Korea. Though this led to a precipitous drop in global crypto market cap shortly afterwards, CoinMarketCap kept thriving and was acquired by Binance in 2020.

The Conclusion

As is the case with most successful industries, luminaries play a crucial role in introducing path-breaking developments which can be leveraged to upgrade the industry to the next level. Nakamoto, Zhao, Buterin and Chez are few of the names who have helped to build the crypto success story and much of the hype can be attributed to their achievements. While the crypto industry looks to get its bearings in the new decade, it can look back on these triumphs and gain inspiration for the way forward. As can be observed, some of these geniuses have maintained their personal privacy but we are thankful that they shared their accomplishments with the whole world!