The top nine influencers in blockchain technology to follow in 2019 are: 1. Vitalik Buterin Established: 2015 Twitter Followers: 836,788 Vitalik Buterin is a software engineer and has contributed to blockchain by establishing Ethereum which was the first to use blockchain’s smart contracts. Vitalik has added to the white paper of ethereum and has written various blogs on bitcoin, blockchain. Vitalik’s idea is to solve the scalability problems ethereum. He also aims to decrease the storage cost of ether. Vitalik is planning to reduce the storage space by introducing sharding of ethereum nodes. Last year Devcon4 was one of the biggest crypto events to date. Vitalik is years ahead of anyone when it comes to development.
The success of ethereum can be scaled with the number of use cases and mass adoption across the entire crypto world. We are excited and carefully watching the developments of ethereum this year. We are looking carefully to see what Vitalik has in store for crypto and blockchain enthusiasts. 2. Charlie Lee Established: 2011 Twitter Followers: 804,509 Charlie Lee is the creator of Litecoin and active voice in the crypto community. Charlie Lee graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in computer science. Charlie worked for Google for more than ten years before creating Litecoin. He remains to be one of the most outspoken in the crypto community and often appears on mainstream news channels.
Charlie’s announcement that he had sold some of his Litecoin holdings created controversy. It made many crypto investors believe that he had let-down his own project. Litecoin is always in the news because of its founder; it has also partnered with sporting events like UFC and GLORY. 3.
Nick Szabo Occupation: Computer Scientist and Legal Scholar Twitter Followers: 228,917 Nick Szabo holds multiple titles next to his name as a researcher, computer scientist, legal scholar known for his research and study in digital currency and digital contracts.
Nick was the one who coined the phrase and concept of ‘smart contracts.’ In 1998, Nick developed the protocol for decentralized virtual currency. Currently, he writes blogs on various blockchain and cryptocurrency topics.
Crypto and blockchain enthusiasts should follow Nick because his visions are unique and ahead of times. Nick is undoubtedly among the top influencers in blockchain technology. 4. Brian Armstrong Established: 2012 Twitter Followers: 278,867 Brian Armstrong is the CEO and Co-founder of Coinbase, one of the most popular fiat to cryptocurrency exchange platform currently available. Brian has a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in computer science from Rice University. Believe it or not, Coinbase has generated massive adoption for the crypto investors to convert their hard-earned fiat currencies into various cryptocurrencies. Coinbase from its inception has worked hard to allow access to more cryptocurrencies available to the masses. 5.
Brad Garlinghouse Established: 2012 Twitter Followers: 208,755 Bradley Kent Garlinghouse commonly known as Brad Garlinghouse is the CEO of Ripple. Brad Garlinghouse has bachelors in economics from the University of Kansas and an MBA from Harvard Business School. Most of them criticize Ripple for not being decentralized; however, they still deserve mentioning due to their continued appearance towards the top of all crypto market caps.
The biggest news for Ripple came as they surpassed Ethereum in terms of market cap.
Ripple is strategically collaborating with industries and universities to enhance blockchain and cryptocurrency adoption. 6. Roger Ver Occupation: Cryptocurrency Investor Twitter Followers: 569,306 Roger Ver is another big influencer in the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry. Roger was among the early investors in bitcoin Initial Coin Offering (ICOs).
He has also acquired startups from other cryptocurrencies like Zcash, Kraken, BitPay, Blockchain to mention a few. Roger now supports Bitcoin Cash, a hard fork of the cryptocurrency designed with the purpose to fix concerns such as high fees and long transaction confirmation times. 7. Joseph Lubin Established: 2015 Twitter Followers: 101,694 Joseph is the Canadian entrepreneur who founded the ConsenSys and also he is the co-founder of ethereum’s blockchain platform.
Ethereum is a decentralized platform that connects to the virtual machine. Joseph’s contribution to blockchain technology is increasing the blockchain database. Crypto enthusiasts should follow Joseph Lubin because his vision is to build products and projects both for the private and public blockchains. He is currently working on web 3.0 which will be capable of delivering both web and mobile applications using blockchain.
Joseph is undoubtedly a leader and one of the top influencers in Blockchain Technology.
8. Andreas M. Antonopoulos Occupation: Speaker, Author and Blockchain Expert Twitter Followers: 470,325 Andreas M. Antonopoulos is a best-selling author, educator, speaker and one of the world’s leading bitcoin and open blockchain experts.
Andreas is known for delivering powerful talks that combine varied interests in economics, psychology, technology, and game theory. Andreas is well known for making the complex blockchain technology dialect easy to understand to the common man.
He has contributed to the blockchain technology through his video talks on the blockchain, ethereum, and bitcoin. Andreas is the author of best-selling book ‘Mastering Bitcoin.’ Andreas is surely one of the top influencers in Blockchain Technology. 9.
Changpeng Zhao (CZ) Established: 2017 Twitter Followers: 290,000 Changpeng Zhao (CZ) is a Chinese-Canadian businessman, who is the founder and CEO of Binance. CZ has a masters degree in computer science from McGill University. Binance became the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume in April 2018.
CZ has taken over the crypto exchange by storm in making Binance the top market in the world with roughly USD 1 billion in volume daily. In December 2018, CZ announced Binance’s plans for 2019, including the launch of Binance Chain, a blockchain developed by Binance. Changpeng Zhao is one of the top influencers to look for in 2019.
CONCLUSION In this article, we have enlisted top influencers in blockchain technology who should be followed by crypto and blockchain enthusiasts. These influencers contributions to blockchain technology are extensive and are way ahead of times. If you want to know innovations, insights of blockchain the above influencers are the one to watch and follow. Related .
