The Fifteen Real Big Brothers in the Currency Circle (Long Text with Ten Thousand Characters)
Editor's Note: This article comes fromLianBit(ID: William1913), author: William Chen, reproduced by Odaily with authorization.
(ID: William1913), author: William Chen, reproduced by Odaily with authorization.
There is a more popular version of the currency circle character rankings, which is "currency circle poker cards", but in fact, when comparing the global currency circle figure rankings with the domestic rankings, you will find that there are two currency circles in the world. circle, one is the global currency circle, and the other is the Chinese currency circle. And this time I want to introduce the foreign currency circle leaderboard.
Without further ado, let's take a look at the top 20 on the list:
If you can recognize more than half of them, then you should be a hardcore player.
Let's start with the first, globally recognized, best Bitcoin evangelist:
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1. Andreas M Antonopoulos
This character, whom readers may not have heard of, ranks first in the global ranking of cryptocurrency figures, which is enough to show how serious the gap between the "currency circle" at home and abroad is. First of all, let's take a quick look at who this person is, and have a basic concept:
Andreas M Antonopoulos is the most well-known figure in the Bitcoin community, and perhaps the most powerful evangelist in the Bitcoin world. He is the one with the most played YouTube videos in the entire currency circle, and his YouTube videos are basically preaching about Bitcoin.
Andreas is the author of "Mastering Bitcoin" and "Mastering Ethereum", a technical book co-authored with Gavin Wood (Ethereum co-founder).
He mainly has these positions.
1、’BITCOIN IS THE FUTURE,It is enough to understand the big guys, understand the position and famous sentences:
BLOCKCHAIN IS BULLSHIT', this sentence is his position, that is, "Bitcoin is the future, blockchain is nothing".
So why did he say that Bitcoin is the only one, and he has always insisted on it, and suddenly wrote a book on Ethereum? His explanation is that "we should all be willing to understand things we don't understand or agree with, and cryptocurrency is not a "religion"." This mind is indeed much broader than too many people. Of course, he didn't go there just to make money, otherwise his reputation might have flourished even after forking Bitcoin.
2. “Bitcoin and cryptocurrency are a form of money that was recently invented and introduced on the Internet, a form of money that exists only in digital form, which can be sent and received like email.”
3. "I'm actually against ETFs. I think a bitcoin ETF would be damaging to the ecosystem. ETFs fundamentally violate the fundamental principle of peer-to-peer money, where each user is not operating through a custodian, but directly controls their money , because they have direct control over their keys."
But it is such a great god with a high reputation and popularity, who is actually very poor, and even has almost no bitcoins.
No kidding, as can be seen from Bitcoin Jesus’ “mocking” of him on Twitter:
What caused the master to not have many bitcoins? Like the author, I believe that I am very similar to you, that is, poor.
He tweeted that he recognized Bitcoin, but since 2012, he really hoped that he could hold Bitcoin forever, but in fact, he spent a lot of time and energy evangelizing Bitcoin, which made him unable to maintain his family and work, so he had to sell all his bitcoins to make ends meet, but he didn’t stop preaching about bitcoin:
After hearing that the god Andreas was actually poor, many people began to send money to his bitcoin address. A total of 102 bitcoins were sent. Among them, an early bitcoin holder donated 79 bitcoins. currency. Donors said that without Andreas, they would not have bought Bitcoin, let alone hold it to this day. He is the source of faith for their early holders.
Since 2012, he has only preached about Bitcoin, and he has actively traveled around the world to give speeches, enlighten people, accept arguments, do not cut leeks, generously admit that he does not own Bitcoin, and accept donations.
The above points make Andreas worthy of being ranked in the hearts of the people, and the number one position in the global currency circle figure list.
In my opinion, the greatest significance of AA is to tell the world:
You can advocate, preach, and support Bitcoin without money.
Having no money is not the reason for you to mow.
Those who have a lot of coins in their wallets may not necessarily have a deep understanding of Bitcoin with no coins in their wallets. These days, being rich is indeed king, but aren't those who say things like "people who don't have money talking nonsense" too superior?
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2. Vitalik Buterin, also known as V God
Because everyone is too familiar with V God, I will just talk about some interesting things here.
At the end of 2013, when China’s currency circle was at its hottest (yes, it was hotter than the bull market in 2017), the 19-year-old V God had just received a bonus from Peter Thiel (Silicon Valley tycoon, founder of PayPal) Bonuses for awesome boys):
What does God V, who got the money, plan to do? He intends to design a new bitcoin. That's right, it's the new Bitcoin, not a new cryptocurrency, etc. V God planned to make a cryptocurrency that can reach the level of Bitcoin from the very beginning.
This new Bitcoin will be based on a general-purpose programming language, and even allow developers to develop all kinds of applications they want on it, whether it is wallets, payment tools, social networking, games or building a new platform. .
V God sent the white paper to 15 people at the beginning, and these 15 people sent it to their friends one after another. Once spread to ten, ten to hundreds, Buterin's idea quickly exploded in the Bitcoin community.
Later, financing had to come from China, where the market was the hottest at that time. As a genius boy, God V has no problem with Chinese. It only took him a few months to learn Chinese by himself. At that time, God V came to China, how did Chinese people think of this child prodigy?
From this Weibo, we can see a general idea:
There was also a small episode in the middle, that is, God V knocked on Du Jun's door, hoping that he could invest a sum of money to help open the Chinese market, but was kicked out by Du Jun at that time. Later, when Du Jun recalled this incident, he could still hear regret. After all, this was a once-in-a-thousand-year business, and he handed it over to Shen Bo.
Later, Shen Bo's Fenbushi Capital successfully invested in Ethereum, and became a very competitive blockchain fund in China, which skyrocketed.
How good is it to invest in Ethereum's ICO? The price at that time was 2000ETH=1BTC. At the highest point, the price of ETH even exceeded 0.1BTC.
Another thing to mention, V God’s Chinese has always been very good, and if he is in a hurry on Twitter, he will directly post Chinese to Chinese users:
Well deserved second place on the leaderboard.
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3. Nick Szabo, Nick Szabo.
First of all, let's take a brief look at a picture:
Nick Szabo is the founder of smart contracts and a major participant in cypherpunk. He has a very high status in the cryptography and liberalism communities. At the same time, he is also the idol of V God.
What are cypherpunks? Simply understand, Bitcoin was born in the cypherpunk community. At that time, Satoshi Nakamoto sent the Bitcoin white paper in the form of an email, and the email reception was the cypherpunk mailing list. Most of the cypherpunks are IT elites, such as Assange, the founder of "WikiLeaks", Bram Cohen, the author of BitTorrent, Sir Tim-Berners Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, and Sean Parker, one of the founders of Facebook. , including Satoshi Nakamoto. In fact, before Bitcoin, cypherpunks have been doing some anonymous electronic cash attempts. For example, Dr. Adam's Hashcash, Wei Dai's B-money, and Nick Szabo's Bitgold, etc. (bitgold's name is indeed similar to bitcoin).
When Satoshi Nakamoto released the Bitcoin white paper in the cypherpunk community, the community was full of ridicule. After all, many big names in the past did not end well in similar "electronic cash", and basically ended in failure. Later, everyone also saw that Bitcoin was successful. But there is no doubt that the cypherpunk community is a community full of talents.
In addition, when it comes to smart contracts, I believe everyone is familiar with them. This concept can be said to be the hottest in the blockchain field. In fact, it was proposed by Nick Saab more than 20 years ago. In 1994, he wrote "Smart Contracts" "(Smart contracts) paper is the pioneering work of smart contracts. Nick Szabo is well-known for his research in the field of digital contracts and digital currencies. He created the term "Smart contracts" and related concepts. Smart contracts are a major feature of cryptocurrencies and the E programming language.
And it's interesting that he's the person most likely to be Satoshi Nakamoto, or at least, a major part of Satoshi's team. According to an analysis by a person familiar with the matter: "The amount of linguistic similarity between what Szabo wrote and the original Bitcoin document is incredible, and no other possible author would have reached a higher degree of match," Grid said. "We're pretty confident that among the leading possibilities, Nick Szabo is the lead author of the paper, although we can't rule out the possibility that others contributed," Reeve said in a news release.
Bitcoin belongs to the whole world.
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4. Adam Back
What is the hottest concept of Bitcoin at the moment? I think maybe the Lightning Network is gone.
The company that developed the lightning network is Blockstream, and the boss is Adam Back.
If there is anyone who has the greatest influence on the development of Bitcoin at present (please note that it is currently), perhaps Adam Back can be one of them.
Adam Back was first famous because his previous thesis, Hash cash (Hash cash), was quoted in the white paper of Bitcoin. This technology tycoon can also be understood as the source of the POW mechanism.
Of course, Adam Back has some dark history. He didn’t give much help to Bitcoin in the early days of Bitcoin’s growth. Adam returned to the Bitcoin world only after Bitcoin had a small scale and experienced the bull market in 2013. in the arms.
In the eyes of the big block party, Blockstream is described as follows: "Blockstream (BS) is the financial supporter behind the core development team, Blockstream is the largest sponsor of core, and most of the companies investing in Blockstream are banking companies."
However, this does not affect Adam Back's great contribution to the origin and development of Bitcoin.
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5. Charlie Lee
Skip the other big cows first, and introduce the top-ranked Chinese on this list, the founder of Litecoin, Li Qiwei.
A report described: "Li Qiwei first learned about Bitcoin from an article describing the dark web Silkroad (Silk Road), and he immediately began to study why Silkroad only accepts Bitcoin. In his eyes, the characteristics of Bitcoin can It is regarded as the gold in digital currency. In 2011, Li Qiwei sprouted the idea of creating an easy-to-use digital currency as a supplement to Bitcoin-he hoped to create silver in digital currency, and Bitcoin is used for large-scale use like gold. payment, then Litecoin can be used for micropayments like silver.”
Li Qiwei does not seem to be a "big guy" in the domestic currency circle, because he rarely speaks out in the domestic media. But in the global currency circle, that is definitely a big shot.
Many people think that the rise of Litecoin is because of "Bit Gold, Lite Silver", but it is far more than that. Litecoin has always been the vanguard of Bitcoin upgrades, fighting on the front line. Leaving aside, let’s just say that Bitcoin’s recently popular Lightning Network has been the first to conduct a complete experiment on Litecoin.
In 17 years, LTC once rushed from 20 yuan to almost 300 yuan in one breath. And the reason for that surge was because LTC upgraded the isolated verification. After Litecoin successfully upgraded the isolation verification, Li Qiwei once again experimented with the Lightning Network on Litecoin, realizing the cross-chain replacement of Litecoin and Bitcoin.
And for many technologies, after the experiment of Litecoin, the Bitcoin community is more assured to use the technology on the larger Bitcoin.
Recently, Litecoin has begun to try the popular protocol: Mimblewimble, which is also used by Grin, and is currently a master of anonymous technology.
(Supplementary) We talked about Adam Back, the fourth-ranked leader, the boss of Blockstream, the pioneer of Lightning Network.
In fact, he also has a black history that is often uncovered by BCH supporters. Their statement is: "He once supported the Hong Kong consensus, and then backed out":
The Hong Kong consensus is a relatively friendly compromise between miners and developers before the BCH fork. The miners compromised with segwit segregated witness, and the developers compromised to expand the block to 2M.
It was originally peaceful, but because of the sabotage of one of the parties, this consensus was not reached in the end.
A year later, the "New York Consensus" separated the content of the Hong Kong consensus and divided it into two steps to implement, first upgrading the Segregated Witness, and then expanding the block.
But the miscarriage of the New York consensus finally annoyed Wu Jihan, which eventually led to the fork of BCH and the split of the community.
Of course, with a few simple strokes, as the largest community split in the history of Bitcoin, the story of the fork can even be published in a book, at least it is a very large chapter in the history of Bitcoin.
But looking back now, it’s not a bad thing. Hard forks are the best solution, rather than quarreling every day.
The past is like clouds and smoke, so don't worry too much about it.
In fact, Adam Back has a lot of black history, including that he did not recognize Bitcoin in 2014, and he came out against Bitcoin. In addition, I do not agree with the concept he advocated, raising the handling fee of Bitcoin to a high level (for example, $100), so as to "force" all micropayments to the Lightning Network. (That is, the "shrinking block" that caused the outbreak before and the direction of increasing the handling fee).
It is very strange to Chinese people to continue to popularize it, but it is very sacred in the hearts of foreigners.
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6. Erik Voorhees
Erik Voorhees. To be honest, I am quite unfamiliar with this big guy. Because his main identity is now the boss of the ShapeShift exchange, and we rarely use this exchange. But as the fifth-ranked "Ancient God", he is one of the few bigwigs who has been with Bitcoin all the way since it had no price.
As early as 2011, his company Bitinstant began to provide fast transactions of Bitcoin, which was the exchange at that time, but the only currency was Bitcoin. And helping people buy bitcoins was just starting to become a business at that time.
The most well-known creation of Erik Voorhees is SatoshiDice, Satoshi Dice.
Newcomers may not have heard of it, but as the originator of the previously popular DAPP "This Dice That Dice", SatoshiDice was very popular at that time. At that time, more than half of the transactions on the Bitcoin chain were played in this game. By analogy, the latecomers should only have the phenomenon-level game comparable to Obsession Cat.
Perhaps Erik himself did not expect that a game he made would become a phenomenon-level application on Bitcoin, the originator of blockchain games, and become the object of imitation by DAPPs. Until 2019, there was also a project called XX Dice.
And because I am not familiar with it, I will not introduce too much. For an old man who has been in the currency circle for more than eight years, but (seems) has no black history, and has been making contributions in the Bitcoin world and has never left. It is worthy of respect.
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7. Peter Todd
Bitcoin core developer, and one of the core figures.
His twitter introduction did not mention that he is a Bitcoin core developer, so when you see this when you tweet, don't think that he is just an ordinary Bitcoin enthusiast...
Peter is a very rational Bitcoin developer. From the beginning, many people are optimistic about the Lightning Network. He has always been very energetic, and has always believed that the Lightning Network has many problems. But this year, although he is still not optimistic about the Lightning Network, his attitude has eased a lot, and at least he has begun to admit that the Lightning Network does have merits.
As for the absurd remarks that "Bitcoin blocks are reduced to 300k", he said fiercely that this is a very stupid idea (of course, we also think the same way, Bitcoin shrinking blocks and additional issuance are all against Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a devastating blow, whoever mentions it, we will strongly oppose it and protect our Bitcoin).
For us Xiaobai, the core members of the legendary Bitcoin Core are all masters.
Respect。
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8. Zooko, Zooko Wilcox
For those who currently have projects, the introduction is much simpler.
Zooko: the founder of Zcash ZEC.
Due to various reasons, the country is not very interested in the currency of the concept of "anonymous currency". In addition, some geeks and more technical founders and teams do not go to China and rarely communicate with Chinese people, resulting in Little is known about this currency that ranks in the 20th (or so) position in China. Not many people can see Zcash say the word "zero-knowledge proof".
However, as the hottest star project of the year, the Zcash project has attracted a lot of attention in the cryptocurrency community since its birth, including Gavin Andresen, the former chief developer of bitcoin core, and Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Ethereum. consultant. In addition, Pantera Capital, an investment company focusing on digital currency and blockchain ecosystems, and Fenbushi Capital (Shen Bo), a subsidiary of Wanxiang Group, are both on the list of investors for the project. It can also be seen that Zooko's reputation and popularity in the circle are indeed good.
In fact, the Zcash project can be traced back to November 9, 2011, and it can be regarded as a project with a relatively long technical accumulation. (In addition, the Grin project started in 2016 with technology accumulation and did not issue coins until 2019, and there is no private placement and no pre-mining. Those projects that collect money first if they don’t have anything, I don’t know if they will be ashamed?)
Zcash is the first cryptocurrency with a mature zero-knowledge proof mechanism providing complete payment confidentiality. The Zcash network can choose ordinary transfer or anonymous transfer, which affects the level of privacy protection and speed.
Speaking of zero-knowledge proofs, we can mention by the way that various optimized zero-knowledge proof technologies may be applied to a sidechain of Bitcoin in the future.
And ZEC has a very firm supporter, who is very familiar to everyone, that is Snowden, the protagonist of the "Prism incident" back then:
In addition, there is a very interesting thing about Zcash, that is, it used to be the most expensive cryptocurrency. When it first opened, the price of Zcash even reached 6BTC.
Who has never been brilliant.
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Nine, Elizabeth Stark Elizabeth Stark
Elizabeth has a lot of background, and she is the "first driving force" of the Lightning Network, which has been in the limelight recently.
This boss, who was very low-key before and didn't become famous until 18 years later, is the only female boss in the top ten. Elizabeth's current title is simple: CEO of Lightning Labs.
She was named one of the most influential people in the currency circle in 2018 by The New York Times, and was also listed as one of the people of the year by Coindesk in 2018. The picture above is the cover that Coindesk created for her, calling her "Bitcoin's Warrior Queen" (I translate it as: Bitcoin's Goddess of War).
Coindesk speaks highly of her: "Bitcoin's Lightning Network might still be just an idea if it wasn't for Elizabeth Stark. She co-wrote the 2016 Lightning Network white paper with Joseph and helped build the original Lightning Network in 2016." imaginary project."
While launching the Lightning Network main chain in 2018, Lightning Network Labs completed a $2.5 million seed round of investment, led by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey and Litecoin founder Li Qiwei, and Tesla’s angel investor Bill Lee , PayPal former COO David Sacks, etc., the lineup can be described as very strong.
At present, the Lightning Network is growing vigorously, becoming more and more courageous, and gaining more and more recognition, which is inseparable from Elizabeth's efforts.
She has a famous saying: "I think we are entering the world of Bitcoin, not the world of blockchain".
It coincides with the views of AA (the number one on the list). They believe that bitcoin can be used as a currency, and bitcoin can be used as a public chain, and there is no need for other miscellaneous coins at all. The goal of the Lightning Network is not only to be a better and faster payment channel for Bitcoin, but also to help Bitcoin achieve the "scalability" that has been criticized.
(But having said that, the media has been blowing up the Lightning Network recently. I hope everyone remains calm. The Lightning Network is still in its infancy. Is it better to expect it to bring a bull market... than to expect it to be halved?)
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10. Gavin Andreson
I put Gavin Andreson at the end of this issue because I found him difficult to talk about, and he felt biased when talking about everything.
This ranking puts Gavin Andreson in the eighth position. It can be seen that this ranking should be made by Bitcoin supporters, and Gavin was at least once "the person closest to the altar", and the ranking should not be so low .
As the first successor after the disappearance of Satoshi Nakamoto, Gavin bears the responsibility for the growth of Bitcoin, and also bears the risk of the "Bitcoin leader" being arrested.
No kidding, if Bitcoin has a soul person who can control Bitcoin, or let the "big brothers" know who Satoshi Nakamoto is, the FBI will knock on the door in minutes.
No kidding, there is a real story. After the media reported that Satoshi Omoto was Satoshi Nakamoto, the Australian police knocked on the door of CSW’s house within a few hours. It's true, the New York Times also reported this incident:
Therefore, the heirs of Satoshi Nakamoto, especially those who are in charge of Bitcoin with their real names, are at great risk.
Besides, at that time, Silk Road and WikiLeaks, the thorns in the eyes of the FBI, liked Bitcoin very much.
So I think Gavin's contribution to the development of Bitcoin from 2010 to 2013 is undeniable.
Perhaps the beginning of his fall from the altar was when he publicly declared that Satoshi Auburn was Satoshi Nakamoto."Later, he directly declared that
BCH is the Bitcoin I've been working on since 2010"
Many people said that Gavin was blackened. But some people also said, if there is no conclusive evidence, why would Gavin support Satoshi Auburn?
Everything is a mystery, only Satoshi Auben and Gavin know. But a series of "mistakes" have also led to Gavin having lost his leadership position and his influence is getting worse day by day.
It's a pity, but there is nothing to discuss here. As I said at the beginning, I tend to discuss everything, and everyone knows these things, so there is nothing to discuss.
However, although Gavin's current influence and popularity are not as good as before, newcomers should not forget that when Satoshi Nakamoto disappeared, the person he entrusted with important tasks was Gavin. The growth of Bitcoin in the past few years from 2010 to 2012, Gavin has contributed must.
I looked at the list below, and many of them are core developers of Bitcoin. It can be said that the author of this list must be a full-fledged Bitcoin fan.
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11. Jameson Lopp
His bio is simple: Cypherpunk.
In fact, he has many identities, for example, he is the core developer of Bitcoin Core.
If AA (the one on the list) is the best offline preacher and popular science preacher of Bitcoin, I think Jameson Lopp is the best online preacher, and as a member of Core, he often speaks to People who don't understand the code popularize some things about Bitcoin in a way that ordinary people can understand.
For example, the two popular articles recently came from him. One is the article "Who is Controlling Bitcoin Core", and the other is "What was discussed at the Satoshi Nakamoto Roundtable". You should be able to hear it from the name alone. This is to explain to the public from the core point of view what we think are mysterious and powerful Bitcoin core members, what they are discussing, what they are doing, what the process is, and what the rules are.
In fact, the Core team has a bad point, or the technical master has a bad point, that is, he prefers to speak with code. For example, the blockchain world shouted "Code is Law" code is law. But they ignore the fact that most people don't understand code at all.
People have cognitive biases. For example, if you are a university graduate and work in a first-tier city, you will mistakenly think that most people are college graduates, most people like the Internet, and most people know that Didi and Uber used to be It has been merged, but it is not true. Most people in China have never gone to college. For them, the Internet is WeChat and Douyin, and they have nothing to care about, and Didi has never used it at all.
It is conceivable that the circle of technical gods is basically all technical gods, so they think that for many things, you can just look at the code? The translation of a sentence they like to say "Talk is cheap, Show me the code" is to just talk about what you are doing, and look at the code and you will be done.
Therefore, there is a person in Core who is very good at "translating" technical matters into a language that the public can understand, and continues to explain various problems to people for free, popularize the latest ideas of Bitcoin developers, and correct some misunderstandings. Make a very comprehensive explanation, etc., and it is naturally loved by people.
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In addition, taking the opportunity to introduce this "science popularization master" in the Core team, I would like to share with you the main content of the article "Who is Controlling Bitcoin Core". I think in the minds of many people, Core is a mysterious organization with great power. After all, it holds the most important code key in the Bitcoin world. Many people even think that Core can control Bitcoin. But people don't actually understand Core, so Lopp wrote a long and complete dry article, explaining in detail what Core is and how it works.
1. Who controls Bitcoin? Actually the question itself is misleading because people have lived under "power politics" for too long. But this is not the Bitcoin model. And these are not easy to understand for many people who don't understand open source software and Bitcoin, but Bitcoin is "decentralized" and belongs to everyone, not to a certain person, organization, or a certain company.
2. The principle followed by bitcoin core is trust no one (do not trust anyone), including github (the platform where bitcoin puts code) itself. bitcoin core will not empower any individual to abuse power. The administrator who merges code permissions is not the center of power, but the role of gatekeeper. (The gatekeeper is the person who has the right to upgrade the Bitcoin core, that is, the Bitcoin software. The first gatekeeper is Satoshi Nakamoto, the second is Gavin Andreson, and the third is van der Laan).
3. Bitcoin core is a loose organization. Anyone can participate in maintaining and auditing the code. The more people involved, the safer it is. (In the latest update of Bitcoin Core, more than 100 people participated in contributing code, thank them for their efforts)
4. The Bitcoin protocol is like the definition of language, which is a spontaneous consensus. Just like the meaning of a word is not defined by a dictionary, no one forces you to accept the dictionary's definition of a word, and no one forces you to run code that you don't want to follow. (If the Bitcoin Core software is upgraded and you do not agree with the upgraded version, you can choose not to upgrade. For example, van der Laan said that if one day the software upgrade reduces the block to 300k, please do not upgrade , because it is no longer Core, Core has changed)
5. Bitcoin is supported by people who insist on "anarchism". There is no ruler here, but it is not without rules. The rules are defined and enforced by every participant on the Bitcoin network. (In the world of Bitcoin, the currency holder is the real core.)
6. No one can control Bitcoin, everyone is Satoshi Nakamoto.
Let me say more: The reason why I want to introduce Bitcoin Core is the Chinese world, because Boss Jiang (Jiang Zhuoer)’s science popularization is too successful, so many newcomers have a bad first impression of Core, which is a bit biased. I hope to help you understand it from another angle. Specifically, you need to judge for yourself.https://lopp.net/bitcoin.html
Finally, the master Jameson Lopp has integrated the best information and resources (in English) in the Bitcoin world, and they are all on this website. If you want to really learn and understand Bitcoin, I suggest you go here:
Thank you God for your sacrifice.
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12. Barry Silbert
This is a real-rich boss, he is the boss of DCG (Digital Currency Group), and DCG is known as the "coin king".
What does that mean? It’s just that on Laomei’s side, many projects have his investment, which is a bit like “Shen Nanpeng in the currency circle”.
In addition to the well-known Coinbase, Coindesk, Ripple (Ripple), ZEC (his founder Zooko was mentioned earlier), Bitpay (not Bitpie), etc., all of which have his investment, the data shows that the currency circle has 100 Many companies have his investment.
And this includes major exchanges in many countries around the world, such as Unocoin in India, Korbit in South Korea, BitFlyer in Japan, BitPesa in Kenya, BitX in Malaysia, etc. After roughly counting, they have already invested in nearly 20 exchanges (all of which are of a certain size), and nearly 50 currencies.
In addition, there are so many companies in the currency circle, which are like giants. Their investment territory has covered more than half of the currency circle, spanning the entire ecological chain. In addition to the DCG we are talking about now, there is also the Blockstream of Adam Back mentioned above. In China, both Huobi OK and Bitmain have invested in many companies. But after the bear market comes, the more companies you invest in, the greater the consumption may be.
Don't say anything, the last picture, let you feel:
So how powerful is this big guy? Barry Silbert is often considered by some securities law experts to be suspected of manipulating market prices. Because generally when he mentions a certain currency on Twitter, there will be some fluctuations in a certain currency, and sometimes even a strong wave of rise. Except for Bitcoin, of course.
And his influence and status on Bitcoin can be explained by one thing: he organized the New York Agreement. The New York Agreement is the last compromise between the two parties before the BCH fork. When the sword was on the verge of breaking out, they were forced to sign the agreement together abruptly, and they had to admire the courage of the boss.
In addition, if I remember correctly, Segregated Witness (SegWit) was also led by Barry Silbert at the beginning.
In addition, this boss was All in the currency circle at the end of 2016.
He has invested in companies in almost every field of the currency circle, the most successful media and exchanges, and various technical teams. Everything is ready, only the issuance of coins. But this boss said from the very beginning, "You can vote for anything, but you must not touch IC0."
Conscience? How about comparing with the domestic bigwigs?
Finally, I would like to present the latest chicken soup of the boss. He is strongly optimistic about the currency market in 2019.
"Then I think that by the end of 2019, the topic will change. People are no longer discussing whether cryptocurrency is good or bad, but: this is an opportunity to make money."
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13. Balaji Srinivasan
The current status of the boss is: Coinbase CTO, partner of Andreessen Horowitz, member of Coindesk Information Committee.
And his earliest identity was the founder of 21Inc. A little earlier, he was the CEO of Earn.com. After Earn.com was acquired by Coinbase in April last year, balaji srinivasan became the CTO of Coinbase by the way.
In addition, if you are not familiar with the investment institution Andreessen Horowitz, you should be more familiar with this nickname: a16z. This limelight agency has already invested in well-known technology companies such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and Airbnb. Of course, this investment institution invested in Coinbase in 2013.
In addition, he is the spokesperson for the Bitcoin Consensus Conference, the most influential conference in the Bitcoin world.
The title alone can be introduced for so long, and everyone should be able to feel what kind of boss this is.
What's even more amazing is that, as a "big guy in the currency circle", this buddy even met Trump after Trump was elected, and was nominated to be the director of the US Food and Drug Administration.
It can be said that this is a big man who has flourished in both the currency circle and the traditional industry.
It’s no wonder why Coinbase’s CTO ranks above the CEO in the rankings.
If it goes well, maybe we will soon see Bitcoin using this protocol to achieve privacy protection. Litecoin is currently being tested.
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14. Brian Armstrong
The owner of Coinbase, everyone should be familiar with this person.
Last year, American Fortune magazine selected 40 financial technology elites under the age of 40. Internet tycoons like Mark Zuckerberg were at the top, and Brian Armstrong was ranked 20th. (Wu Jihan and V God are also on the list at the same time).
In fact, as early as July 2011, Brain Armstrong designed a "bitcoin core" software for Android phones:
Unfortunately, this software was not successful. But Bitcoin is definitely indelible in his heart.
He saw the Bitcoin white paper in 2010, and he fell in love with Bitcoin after that. In his words, Bitcoin was his "first love."
There is actually nothing to introduce about this big guy, because the introduction of him always involves Coinbase.
And there are three people in this ranking who are all from Coinbase, so let’s introduce the exchange Coinbase next.
By the way, maybe New Leek didn’t know that Li Qiwei used to be a Coinbase employee. This is a long story, and there is a very interesting historical detail. In 2011, Li Qiwei developed Litecoin. This project is indeed very powerful. In 2012, when Coinbase was launched, he went to work at Coinbase. Until April 2017, Li Qiwei said that Litecoin will be listed on Coinbase. One month later, he left his job to specialize in Litecoin. This timing is really good and very interesting. So much so that in the middle of 2018, B.com even got angry with Li Qiwei, saying that when he was in office, he "took advantage of his position" to get Litecoin on Coinbase.
But whether it is true or not, only Li Qiwei and Boss Brain should know.
Next let’s talk about Coinbase.
First of all, this name is a bit interesting. Its source is a word mentioned in the Bitcoin white paper, and it is also a word that you will see when you query Bitcoin blocks (as shown in the figure). In popular science books and articles, the word is translated as "coin base".
In addition, although domestic friends are not familiar with it, Coinbase had a high status in the global currency industry at that time.
Since opening for business in 2012, Coinbase has been very restrained and conservative compared with the exchanges of the same period. From 2012 to 2016, there was only one currency, Bitcoin, until it joined ETH in 2016, joined LTC in 17, and only in 2018. Joined BCH, and did not join any IC0 currency during the entire bull market, very restrained. It was not until the arrival of the big bear market that Coinbase began to expand its enrollment and launch some small currencies, and every time Coinbase goes online, the currencies will get a good boost.
After all, when Coinbase listed BCH, the increase of BCH was as high as 40%.
In addition, due to the time-honored guarantee of Coinbase, it is quite safe and convenient, and there have been no major accidents or accidents. In addition, the convenient fiat currency transactions are legal and compliant, making Coinbase the most popular fiat currency entry channel.
So after so many years of operation, no one knows how many bitcoins are in Coinbase's cold wallet. However, there was an explosive news last year that attracted people's attention. On December 4 last year, Jiang Zhuoer posted a Weibo "43 pens × 8000 coins, is it Virgo buying coins, or Virgo sorting coins?". Jiang Zhuoer mentioned that he observed that some large households transferred BTC and BCH in large amounts, and hoarded them in the format of 8,000 BTCs per account. A total of 77 addresses were hoarded, up to 616,000 BTCs. A few days later, the army of addresses each storing 8,000 BTC has rapidly expanded from 43 when Jiang Zhuoer posted on Weibo to 107, growing at an average rate of 20 accounts per day. The total number of Bitcoins it has hoarded has reached 856,000.
At that time, the "Virgo address" aroused people's speculation. If it is a large account, the account is too terrible. When it is unhappy, it can smash the price of Bitcoin to the bottom.
But fortunately, it was later confirmed that Coinbase was organizing their wallets. So it is basically certain that Coinbase holds more than 1 million bitcoins. At present, there are only about 13 million bitcoins in circulation.
In addition, if there is any exchange in the world that has launched the top ten mainstream coins, which will increase the mainstream coins by more than 10%, it will be gone except Coinbase, right? Just two days ago, Coinbase announced the launch of Ripple XRP, and the XRP market quickly responded with a 12% increase.
So which mainstream currency is not yet listed on Coinbase? EOS and TRX, two small partners, can still look forward to it.
In fact, it can’t be said that, besides Coinbase, there should be another exchange that also has this energy, that is, the Bakkt exchange that the currency circle has not yet looked forward to for the stars and the moon.
This time, a big shot was skipped in the big shot list, that is, Tuur Demeester, who ranked tenth.
Because I didn't enter the circle too early, and I have limited knowledge of the big guy, so I really don't know how to introduce him. But there is no doubt that his influence in the currency circle is still very important. At the same time, he is also a full-fledged "Bitcoin is the best, and the others are useless" party. He also used "50 tweets in a row" (this is also a common skill in the currency circle) to explain Why he is not optimistic about Ethereum at all has also attracted replies and rebuttals from God V.
In fact, the global currency circle is like a sea of stars, and there are countless people who have contributed to the development of Bitcoin without asking for anything in return. My original intention of writing this series is also to let everyone know that Bitcoin has attracted the attention and support of many people around the world, and it is not a Ponzi scheme game where foreigners deceive Chinese people. And the term "big guy in the currency circle" should not become synonymous with cutting leeks.
In addition, perhaps different from what many people think, the technical development strength of Bitcoin has always been ahead of the entire currency circle. Many people see that Bitcoin is only updated once a long time, and it seems to be a "very old" currency. Unlike many blockchain projects that are constantly updated and iterated, TPS is rising slowly, and DAPPs cannot be developed, etc., so they think that Bitcoin In fact, Bitcoin has not made any progress.. In fact, it is wrong. The development level of Bitcoin is very high, but because Bitcoin is too large, many technical upgrades must be cautious and cautious, and often need to let the younger brother ( LTC) try it first, and then use it on Bitcoin. Such as the previous Segregated Witness and Lightning Network.
It's okay if you don't understand, I don't understand...but I know, just sit tight and take off immediately.
Write at the end:
Write at the end:
