Buterin’s awards, Sana’s scandals and forecasts of a rise in the price of Bitcoin to $ 400,000. Who refused to buy BTC for $ 1 and whose tweets can bring down the digital asset market

In the crypto industry, personality is of the utmost importance. Speaking at a conference or even an ordinary tweet of an influential person can provoke a rise or collapse in the price of Bitcoin and other coins. What kind of persons to follow, and how they have already influenced the cryptocurrency market.


Bitcoin creators


The main person in the history of cryptocurrencies was and is likely to remain the creator of bitcoin Satoshi Nakamoto. This is a pseudonym under which one or more people are hiding. Who these people are unknown, however, in the crypto community there are many guesses. For example, it is believed that the beginning of the new technology could be laid by a British businessman, specialist in the field of cryptography and cipher bank Adam Back. In 2016, he was named one of the potential candidates for the post of Nakamoto according to the Financial Times.

A few months ago, a video came out on a YouTube channel called BarelySociable with arguments that it was Beck who was hiding under the pseudonym Nakamoto. The Briton denied this statement and noted that it is better for the creator of the cryptocurrency not to reveal his identity in order to maintain BTC's reputation for independence.

Another, however, self-proclaimed candidate for Nakamoto's place is the Australian programmer and scientist Craig Wright. In 2015, he stated that he had developed Bitcoin with a colleague, Dave Kleiman, who had died two years earlier.

At the moment, a lawsuit is underway against Wright, organized by Ira Kleiman, the sister of the deceased. According to her, the Australian scientist has access to a wallet with more than 820,000 BTC , which were mined with Dave in the early years of the cryptocurrency.


The creators of the most popular altcoins

After Satoshi Nakomoto, developers of other cryptocurrencies enjoy great influence and fame. The first of them after Bitcoin was Litecoin. It was released by Charlie Lee in October 2011, based on the BTC code. Since then, the price of altcoin has increased by 900%, to $ 43, in December 2017, rising to a maximum of $ 375.

Probably the most recognized among the creators of altcoins is the Canadian-Russian programmer, Ethereum developer Vitalik Buterin. In 2017, he entered the top 10 of the Fortune Magazine's Top 40 Most Influential Young People Under 40. Then Forbes put Buterin in the ranking of 600 brightest people under 30 years old.

Ethereum is the second largest cryptocurrency by capitalization. It was released in 2013 and since then has risen in price by more than 8000%. Altcoin currently costs $ 232, in January 2017 its price was understood up to $ 1,400. The fame of Buterin and his coin was largely brought about by the “ICO boom”. 3 years ago, most projects used the ETH blockchain to issue their tokens.

The CEO of the California blockchain startup Ripple Brad Garlinghouse is also famous. He was not a direct developer of the XRP token, but is the face of the company. She develops solutions for banks that focus on fast and cheap cross-border transfers.

The attitude of the crypto community to the XRP token is controversial. In particular, this is due to the fact that this altcoin cannot be mined. It is centralized, its entire issue of 100 billion coins was issued by the company. A lawsuit was filed against Ripple . Bitcoin Manipulation Abatement claims that the startup and its head Garlinghouse raised over $ 1 billion through the illegal promotion and sale of their cryptocurrency. Since its inception, its rate has grown by 3200%, to $ 0.19, in January 2018, setting a maximum of $ 3.84.

Justin Sun, the head of the Tron Foundation project, also has a controversial reputation. He is one of the creators of the TRX token, which was released in August 2017. Since then, altcoin has risen in price by almost 700%, to the current mark of $ 0.016. The historical TRX price maximum was set in January 2018 at $ 0.3.

San has repeatedly used dubious methods to advertise his project. For example, in January, a businessman posted a post on his Twitter account with condolences about the death of basketball player Kobe Bryant, twice mentioning his own blockchain summit niTROn. In response to this, the crypto community accused San of heartlessness, lack of respect and recommended choosing another PR campaign.

In May, Sun turned out to be a member of another scandal. There was a place in it for the police and the theft of cryptocurrency for millions of dollars. We talked about this in more detail in our previous article .

Sun is actively maintaining his Twitter account. In it, he often publishes announcements of project updates or related events. In most cases, this affects the price of TRX. For example, in January, a businessman announced that he would launch a “secret project”, immediately after that the TRX token and the second BTT startup cryptocurrency went up.

One of the key players in the crypto industry is Binance Changpen Zhao, CEO of the Binance Exchange, also known as CZ. The trading platform has its own BNB token. Last year, its price rose after the head of the company announced on his Twitter account about the development of the project. As Zhao himself admitted in an interview with Cointelegraph , he spends 20% of his time communicating with the community on social networks.

In February, Zhao topped the list of the richest representatives of the crypto industry according to the Chinese research institute Hurun. The state of the head of Binance was estimated at $ 2.6 billion.


Billionaires and businessmen

One of the most famous cryptocurrency market wealthies is billionaire and Galaxy Digital Fund head Mike Novogratz. He often gives interviews to leading American channels such as CNBC, making forecasts on bitcoin prices. For example, in April, Novogratz announced that BTC would rise in price to $ 20,000 by the end of the year.

Another well-known billionaire is Maxwell “Max” Kaiser, the founder of Heisenberg Capital, the presenter of “Keiser Report”, a former trader. When bitcoin was worth $ 1, Kaiser predicted that the price of the coin would rise to $ 100,000. In February of this year, he raised the rate to $ 400,000.

The Tyler Brothers and Cameron Winklevoss have left a memorable mark in the history of digital money . In 2017, they became the first crypto billionaires. The book "Bitcoin-billionaires" was written about this, soon a film will be released on it.

In 2004, the brothers sued Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. It was alleged that he stole their idea of ​​creating a social network while studying at Harvard. For this reason, in 2010, Zuckerberg paid the Winklevoss family $ 65 million and $ 1.25 million in Facebook shares. Later, in 2013, the brothers invested about $ 11 million of the funds received in bitcoin. Then his rate ranged from $ 100 to $ 1,100.

The main critic of the first cryptocurrency is the head of Euro Pacific Capital and gold supporter Peter Schiff. On March 13, he said that the “bubble burst”, speaking of a sharp drop in the price of bitcoin from $ 8,100 to $ 3,800. Since then, the coin has risen in price by almost 150%.

Schiff gained fame in the world of cryptocurrencies thanks to his 2011 performance, when bitcoin cost about $ 1. Then the economist said that he would prefer to invest $ 10 thousand in gold than in BTC, since it is not known what will happen to the latter in a few years. Since then, the coin has risen a thousand times, which the crypto community often recalls to Schiff in his Twitter account.

The billionaire and owner of the Dallas Mavericks basketball club, Mark Cuban, is also distrustful of cryptocurrencies. From his point of view, bitcoin, unlike gold, is useless , since it cannot be used in the creation of electronics or jewelry. Kyuban expressed even more criticism in September 2019, comparing BTC with bananas. The berry, as it turned out, is better.


Presidents

The heads of state in the development of the crypto industry take an indirect part. At certain points, they had a significant impact on the price of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. For example, in October last year, the Chinese president said blockchain is one of the key technologies. Within a day after this, the BTC rate increased from $ 7,000 to $ 10,000. Four days later, the TRX token based in China increased by 50%, and Neo - by 100%.

The opposite contribution was made by US President Donald Trump. In July last year, the head of state wrote on Twitter that cryptocurrencies are not a monetary unit, they are extremely volatile, and their value is “taken from the ceiling”. He also criticized the design of the Facebook Libra payment system, calling it unreliable. Within a week after that, BTC fell 15%.

Trump has repeatedly influenced the stock market. You can read more about such cases in the material of our colleagues.

Moreover, Trump did plan to “end” cryptocurrency and stop trading it. With a corresponding request, he turned to the US Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin in May 2018. This is stated in the book of the former adviser to the President of the United States on national security, John Bolton, "The room where this happened: the White House memoirs."

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro showed great support for cryptocurrency. In October, he indicated that the country was using digital money to circumvent US sanctions. “Donald Trump and his sanctions block Venezuelan transactions in any of the world's banks. But there are other payment schemes, so our payment system works well in China and in Russia, ”the head of state said.