Faces of Crypto World

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26 Jul 2023

Who is the most prominent person in the crypto world?

Of course, it is Satoshi Nakamoto, the founder of Bitcoin, the man, who started the whole Era of blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and Web 3.0.
This famous blockchain pioneer is well known by everyone... but is it for sure?

Firstly published his Bitcoin manifest in October 2008, then the blockchain was commissioned on January 2009, and the first coins were mined, after that, he supported and was improving the whole system, together with other developers.
12th of December 2010 he wrote about one of his last improvements: "Added some DoS limits, removed safe mode",
day after he participated at Bitcointalk Forum, at chat referring to protections of cyber attacks... and...
all of a sudden he disappeared.
What does he look like? No one knows.
We don't even know if a person like him, had really existed, was he one man or group of people?
Nowadays, Satoshi Nakamoto is nothing more, than a true legend.

However there is a monument impersonating him, as I remember, it lied in Hungary and we can see his face, it looks like in the picture:

Of course, it is only a symbol, and in his "mirrorlike" face we can see ourselves.
Anyway, Satoshi disappeared but his project carried on and became to exist an independent life.
Meanwhile, the whole idea of cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies has developed in various ways and started new chapters of the modern economy, banking, entertainment, media, trade, and many more sectors.
The question of cryptocurrencies evolved the way according to Satoshi's idea is a topic for another article.

Like any other branch, which absorbs large amounts of money, this one (blockchain technologies) also attracts many, often very prominent people, the good ones and the bad ones... and I'd like to introduce some of them.
I think I can divide them into some categories, lets start:

Vitalik Buterin
I have a feeling, that I just have to start with a description of this guy.
He comes from the small Russian town of Kolomna, but when he turned six, his family immigrated to Canada.
Young Vitalik since the early years manifested his talent in math and computing.
At the age of 17, he became the co-founder and lead writer for Bitcoin Magazine, probably the first publication that focus solely on all things crypto. During his time there, his reputation within the underground crypto scene grew to an impressively high level.

In 2013, he stated the white paper for Ethereum, a decentralized, open-source blockchain featuring smart contract functionality. The project attracted widespread traction, just after its release, as is made evident by the fact that its development was entirely crowdfunded, and by mid-2015, the network had gone live with 72 million pre-mined coins.
Nowadays Ethereum is the second largest blockchain with over 50,5 mln applications built on it, it is still improved and innovated (the Beacon Chain, the Merge).
Also, the ETH coin has the second biggest coin market capitalization.

Jesse Powell
A California State University graduate, previously got an early digital currencies in 2001 when he founded a firm assisting players in online games with account management and in-game currencies. In 2007, he founded the Verge Gallery and Studio Project, which he ran until 2010 as Sacramento's largest contemporary commercial art gallery at the time.

Inspired by the Mt. Gox exchange, he was following its security breach and began developing Kraken - the cryptocurrency exchange. Kraken was finally launched in 2013.

Powell has contributed a lot to a strong proponent of cryptocurrency adoption and was to attempts to overregulate the sector, making several scathing public statements about efforts by the attorney general of New York to crack down on crypto.

In 2021, Powell oversees the launch of the Kraken Bank in Cheyenne, Wyoming, a turning point in the integration of crypto with mainstream finance.

Kraken, the fourth biggest exchange (according to Coinmarketcap ranking) seems to be highly adaptable in a fast-changing industry, it introduced options like DeFi with more staking and earning opportunities on the exchange and the integration of Lightning Network payments.
<span;>It has also one the most clear proof of reserved, compared to other exchanges.

Michael Saylor
This comes from a military background, MIT graduate became the head of business intelligence company MicroStrategy, founded in 1989, and went from his primal aversion to Bitcoin in 2013 to being one of the digital asset’s most enthusiastic proponents in 2020.

In August 2020, MicroStrategy bought $250 million worth of Bitcoin for its treasury reserves, then the company placed an additional $175 million into Bitcoin, for a total stack worth about $425 million.

MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin allocations came at the beginning of the recent mainstream financial trend around digital coins. Many other mainstream giants publicized their Bitcoin investments following these moves.

Finally, the company bought more Bitcoins in December — $650 million worth.
In 2021 an amount of 70,470 BTC was cumulatively allocated, which was worth over a billion dollars.
Due to its CEO's (Saylor) Bitcoin was considered a hedge against inflation and should also solidify as the United States continues to fight pandemic-induced economic difficulties with government spending (painting FIAT money).
Between August 2, 2022, and September 19, 2022, around 301 bitcoins were bought for roughly $6.0 million at an average price of $19,851 per piece.
Holistically the company held approximately 130,000 bitcoins, aggregating a whopping $3.98 billion. These purchases were made at an average purchase price of $30,639 per piece.
Despite posting a loss in the second quarter of Fiscal 2022 results, Saylor has a strong conviction in bitcoin’s future potential, he stepped down from his CEO role to focus his full attention on bitcoin management strategy.

The "Crypto World Universum" inhabits a lot of interesting characters: heroes, mentors, and villains, and I find it fine as a topic for future articles... so I hope you enjoyed it, and see you next time!
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