Who Defined the Past Year in Crypto?

CoinDesk Presents the Top 50 Most Influential People in 2021

CoinDesk's Most Influential recognizes 50 people or groups who represent the biggest stories of the year.   In 2021, the most newsworthy breakthroughs ranged from the rise of NFTs, the continued growth of DeFi and stablecoins, the emergence of hot projects like Solana and Dogecoin, and the public listing of powerhouse companies like Coinbase. View Full List Preview This Year's List Sam Bankman-Fried The Miami Heat now play in the FTX Arena. Tom Brady and Gisele Bündchen star in FTX commercials. Only a year ago, most Americans had never heard of FTX, an exchange that – at the time – focused on professional trading products like derivatives. After a $420 million round of fundraising, FTX is now worth an estimated... Read Sam's Profile Elon Musk Regardless of your personal views of the man, you can't deny his outsized influence on crypto in 2021 – specifically on the price of bitcoin and dogecoin. It's possible that no one has ever had more direct influence on the price of an asset in all of human history. By simply tweeting a meme to his 65 million followers, Musk had the power to... Read Elon's Profile Trung Nguyễn The CEO of Sky Mavis and the company behind Axie Infinity, the breakthrough game that popularized play-to-earn video games, wasn't always a blockchain supporter. In fact, in 2017, when the initial coin offering (ICO) boom was in full swing, all he saw were bad actors trying to... Read Trung's Profile Senator Cynthia Lummis The Wyoming Senator holds plenty of BTC and may be the crypto industry's most prominent advocate in Congress. She has spoken at length about lots of issues in her first year in the chamber, and her vocal advocacy for the cryptocurrency industry... Read Cynthia's Profile Each year CoinDesk's Most Influential does more than recognize the who's who in the space. This year we've commissioned 10 artists to create portraits of these influencers, with NFTs of the works available at platforms like SuperRare and Foundation. Each sale will donate up to 20% to charities of the artists' choice. View Full List Copyright © 2021 CoinDesk, All rights reserved.    250 Park Avenue South New York, NY 10003, USA You can manage your preferences here or unsubscribe from all CoinDesk email.