Most Influential 2024


Tech

Sergio Demian Lerner: Making Bitcoin More Programmable

The founder of Rootstock is working to create a framework for running programs on Bitcoin and enabling the development of more sidechains and Layer 2s.

Sergio Demian Lerner Pudgy Penguins

Finance

Mahesh Ramakrishnan: The DePIN Cheerleader

Decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePIN) took off bigtime this year, and EV3 Ventures’ Ramakrishnan was at the center of it all.

(Pudgy Penguins)

Finance

Michael Saylor: The Architect of MicroStrategy’s Huge Bitcoin Bet

Most companies were leery of Saylor’s strategy when he started amassing bitcoin back in 2020. Some are no longer skeptical.

(Pudgy Penguins)

Tech

Robin Linus: Scaling Crypto’s Premier Network

The developer behind BitVM is facilitating the building of more and more applications atop Bitcoin.

(Pudgy Penguins)

Tech

Yat Siu: Fighting for Digital Property Rights

The Animoca Brands co-founder, a big investor in NFTs, GameFi and memecoins, wants to make on-chain capitalism secure so that digital democracy can flourish.

(Pudgy Penguins)

Policy

Patrick McHenry: The Lawmaker Who Built a Foundation for U.S. Crypto Legislation

The outgoing chair of the House Financial Services Committee deserves significant credit for getting the FIT21 market structure bill through the House in 2024.

(Pudgy Penguins)

Finance

Arthur Hayes: The USDe Visionary and Fiat Skeptic

Ethena (USDe) has been one of Arthur Hayes' family office’s most prolific investments. It's also a great synthesis of Hayes' fiat-skeptic views.

(Pudgy Penguins)

Policy

Balaji Srinivasan: Spreading the Network State

With renewing public institutions on the agenda, the Network State could be an idea whose time has come. If so, Srinivasan will again have been prescient.

(Pudgy Penguins)

Policy

Brian Nelson: Leading the Charge Against Tornado Cash

As a U.S. Treasury official, Nelson went after the asset mixing service in a consequential case for the crypto sector that came to a head in 2024.

(Pudgy Penguins)

Tech

Greg Osuri: Delivering on DePIN

The co-founder of the Akash Network is utilizing DePIN to make computing power more affordable to individual users.

(Pudgy Penguins)

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Most Influential 2024 | CoinDesk