Celebrity Gathering - Who are the big names in the Bitcoin and blockchain industry?

While critics remain skeptical about the future viability of the bitcoin digital currency, at least one group of people is not: venture capitalists. Venture capitalists poured more money into bitcoin and blockchain startups than ever before last year, nearly $1 billion. They’re helping keep the industry hot, even if we haven’t seen the much-anticipated “killer app” emerge. But it’s not just investors who are leading the charge in the blockchain industry, there are also many key executives, thinkers and even policymakers.

Of course, investors are equally enthusiastic about companies exploring blockchain, and while a Prudential survey this month found that 57% of financial executives said they were unsure whether the banking industry would implement blockchain technology, the idea of ​​banks using blockchain (without using bitcoin) is still gaining traction.

So, who are the true believers in blockchain technology? They are some of the big names in the Bitcoin and blockchain fields. Some are executives of companies with plenty of money, and some are investors in these companies. These people all play a pivotal role in the Bitcoin and blockchain fields. Here are 11 of them. Please note that the following figures are randomly arranged, not ranked.

1. Marc Andreessen, Andreessen Horowitz

Anyone in the tech world should know Andreessen. He is one of the co-founders of Netscape, a board member of Facebook, eBay and other companies, and a co-founder of Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, whose portfolio includes investments in Bitcoin wallet companies Coinbase, 21 Inc and TradeBlock. In 2014, he wrote a column in the New York Times with a bold title: "Why Bitcoin Matters." He also freely shares news related to Bitcoin and blockchain with his 500,000 Twitter followers.

Marc Andreessen

2. Barry Silbert, Digital Currency Group

In 2004, Barry Silbert founded SecondMarket, which allows customers to buy shares in non-public companies. He sold the company to Nasdaq last year and then founded Digital Currency Group, which has become the largest Bitcoin and blockchain investment company. The number of companies invested by Digital Currency Group has exceeded 75. Recently, Digital Currency Group also bought Coindesk, a cutting-edge Bitcoin news website, and also acquired Consensus, Coindesk's annual Bitcoin industry conference. On the other hand, Silbert and Digital Currency Group are almost always involved every time a Bitcoin startup announces a new round of financing. At the same time, he also established the Bitcoin Investment Trust Fund (GBTC), which can conduct over-the-counter Bitcoin trading and track Bitcoin prices.

Barry Silbert

3. Blythe Masters, Digital Asset Holdings

Masters is a bit of a peculiar figure in the bitcoin space. She was an executive at JPMorgan Chase for nearly 30 years, including as global head of commodities, before leaving to run Digital Asset Holdings, a startup that seeks to apply blockchain technology to Wall Street. The company’s first big client was her former employer, JPMorgan. JPMorgan is now working with Digital Asset Holdings to test using blockchain to speed up settlements. Digital Asset has raised $60 million in funding. Because of Masters’s huge Wall Street name, her moves will bring enormous legitimacy to the industry. (Masters isn’t the only female leader in the bitcoin space: Catheryne Nicholson is CEO of blockchain startup BlockCypher, which has raised $3.5 million; Elizabeth Rossiello is CEO of BitPesa, an African bitcoin payments company.)

Blythe Masters

4. David Rutter, R3

R3 CEV is a private company that has formed a consortium of banks that are interested in exploring blockchain technology. More than 40 banks have joined the consortium, including Bank of America, Deutsche Bank and Wells Fargo. This month, R3 also announced that they had conducted a bank online distributed ledger test with the help of Chain, Ethereum and IBM. R3 has attracted many institutions to participate in the process of turning the abstract concept of banking blockchain into reality.

David Rutter

5. Adam Back, Blockstream

Bitcoin is based in part on a hashing algorithm that requires proof of work, which can reduce spam. As president of blockchain startup Blockstream, Back has become a key figure in the debate over the block size of the Bitcoin blockchain. His work and academic experience have made him an industry authority. Reid Hoffman, one of the key co-founders of LinkedIn, has personally invested $21 million in Blockstream. Blockstream has raised $76 million in funding.

Adam Back

6. Brian Armstrong, Coinbase

In 2015, Coinbase raised $75 million, becoming the most funded Bitcoin company at the time (a record later broken by 21 Inc.). Coinbase has raised $107 million so far and is arguably the most famous Bitcoin startup. Coinbase's Bitcoin wallet has become one of the most commonly used Bitcoin wallets. At the same time, Armstrong, as the leader of Coinbase, is also one of the wisest thinkers in the industry.

Brian Armstrong

7. Jesse Powell, Kraken

Kraken is a San Francisco-based bitcoin exchange, but the company's business activities are mostly in Europe. Just last year, the New York State Department of Financial Services issued the controversial regulatory framework for bitcoin companies, the Bitelicense. After that, Powell led a group of bitcoin startups to leave New York. Kraken has now stopped its New York business, which is seen as Powell's strong opposition to restrictive regulation. Kraken has raised $6.5 million in funding and has recently increased its acquisition expansion. It has acquired the US exchange Coinsetter (Coinsetter previously acquired the Canadian exchange Cavirtex). Kraken's acquisition of Coinsetter is currently the largest merger and acquisition in the bitcoin field. Coinsetter used to have a business in New York, but now it doesn't, because of Powell. Kraken is still expanding, but not in New York, which is currently the center of many blockchain activities, so New York should be important for Kraken if they want to develop blockchain in the future.

Jesse Powell

8. Wences Casares, Xapo

Reid Hoffman called Vincens "the most impatient person in Silicon Valley for Bitcoin." Vincens' startup Xapo is one of the earliest Bitcoin wallet companies. Although Xapo is in a legal dispute with LifeLock (Lifelock acquired Vincens' previous startup Lemon), this does not seem to stop Xapo's development. In January of this year, PayPal also offered Vincens a new seat on the board of directors. This appointment is big news in the Bitcoin circle, because a Bitcoin entrepreneur joining the PayPal board can be said to be a milestone in the Bitcoin industry. Xapo has raised $40 million in funding.

Wences Casares

9. Balaji Srinivasan, 21 Inc.

Srinivasan is the co-founder and CEO of 21 Inc. and a partner on the board of Andreessen Horowitz. When 21 Inc. was first announced publicly, the company was very mysterious. Observers didn't know what 21 would do, but had high expectations. 21 Inc. has raised more money than any other bitcoin startup to date - $121 million. Last year, 21 finally launched their first product - a small bitcoin PC that can build applications on the bitcoin blockchain.

Balaji Srinivasan

10. Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum

Ethereum is an alternative to Bitcoin that some believe has more potential than Bitcoin. Like Bitcoin, the Ethereum platform also runs on a decentralized blockchain that allows any peer-to-peer value transactions and uses its own currency, ether. Buterin began developing the Ethereum concept in 2013 and sold about 60 million ethers in the 2014 Ethereum presale, which was worth about $18.4 million at the time. The Ethereum blockchain was officially launched last summer. Therefore, Buterin, who is only 22 years old, is called a "prodigy" in the industry. At the same time, he also helped launch Bitcoin Magazine.

Vitalik Buterin

11. Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, Winklevoss Capital

Cameron and Taylor, who rose to fame after suing Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg for $65 million, have been working to prove they are real entrepreneurs, and now they have done so in the bitcoin industry. In 2014, they launched a bitcoin price index, Winkdex, a simple site that tracks bitcoin prices over time. This year, they launched Gemini, a bitcoin exchange. Like Winkdex, Gemini has an attractive design but a small user base. (According to TradeBlock, Gemini's average daily trading volume is only $338,000, while Kraken's daily trading volume is $1.3 million.) Cameron and Taylor have bigger goals: the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust, a bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) that will trade on the Nasdaq, pending regulatory approval. In a sign that the bitcoin community doesn't like the Winklevoss brothers, a prominent bitcoin executive told Fortune:

“If our industry needs a spokesperson, we don’t want it to be them”

But the Winklevoss brothers did bring mainstream star power to Bitcoin.

Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss

Original text: https://beta.finance.yahoo.com/news/the-biggest-players-investors-in- bitcoin-and-blockchain-152121414.html?soc_src=mail&soc_trk=ma
By Daniel Roberts
Compiled by: Kyle
Source (translation): Babbitt Information (http://www.8btc.com/the-big-names-in-bitcoin-and-blockchain)