Santa made his list and he checked it twice, and Decrypt hasall the tea on who’s been naughty or nice in the crypto industry over the past year.
From crypto CEOs who advocate for the industry to NFT project founders who use their good fortune to help others, several Web3 workhorses made their way onto Saint Nick’s “nice list” this year. Here’s who can expect presents under the tree when Santa comes to town.
The soft-spoken CEO of Coinbase spent ample time in Washington this year, participating in discussions with Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike on the future of crypto in the U.S. Meanwhile, Armstrong’s team led initiatives to center digital assets-related issues in the 2024 U.S. elections, sponsoring studies on crypto holders’ political leanings and facilitating Republican candidate Donald Trump’s push to accept campaign donations in crypto.
Securitize CEO Carlos Domingo is the face of the crypto industry’s tokenization craze—a trend that has helped catapult digital asset prices to new heights in 2024. In June, the executive delivered testimony on Capitol Hill about the importance of real-world asset tokenization and its implications for the future of finance.
Securitize CEO Carlos Domingo. Photo: Carlos Domingo
MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor has continued to be a fierce advocate for Bitcoin, adding more than $15 billion worth of the world’s oldest cryptocurrency to his company’s balance sheet in the last few weeks, according to the company’s filing with U.S. regulators.
Saylor’s firm holds 423,650 Bitcoin (worth $41.5 billion) as of publication time, the company’s financial statements show.
MicroStrategy co-founder and Executive Chairman Michael Saylor at Bitcoin 2023 in Miami. Source: André Beganski/Decrypt
Despite HODLing roughly 2% of all the Bitcoin that will ever be mined, Saylor has contributed to the future of the cryptocurrency in another big way—by encouraging other tech giants to hold the asset.
Earlier this month, Saylor pitched Microsoft’s directors on a proposal to add Bitcoin to the company’s balance sheet—a proposal its shareholders ultimately rejected. In addition, he urged Amazon shareholders to also nudge the delivery company toward investing in the digital currency. Many other smaller companies have also followed MicroStrategy’s playbook.
Maggie Love
Maggie Love is the founder of SheFi, a community for women in the cryptocurrency industry.
SheFi offers dedicated job boards, courses and networking opportunities for women, a demographic group that remains largely underrepresented in Web3 and the broader technology sector.
Less than 15% of startups within the Web3 ecosystem have at least one female founder, while just 3% have an all-female founding team, according to a Boston Consulting Group analysis of Crunchbase data.
A year ago, SheFi Summit was an experiment.
Today it’s a movement.
Grateful to all 500+ of you who came out to the biggest SheFi Summit yet and made it incredibly clear:
SheFi is challenging that lack of representation, however.
Since its inception, SheFi has amassed more than 3,000 members, making it one of the largest women-led communities in crypto.
Edward Snowden
NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has continued to advocate for privacy rights at a time when cryptocurrency and blockchain network adoption is accelerating.
The vector of development that the internet and society is traveling leads away from extraordinary people sharing unique beliefs, and toward a tyranny of mediocrity. It is a preference for “normal” so strong that it extinguishes excellence; a ruthless allegiance to the average.
At the annual Bitcoin conference in Nashville, TN, this summer, Snowden warned the conference’s attendees to vote independently in the upcoming U.S. presidential elections, which posed major consequences for the future of the crypto industry. He also flagged that governments could use artificial intelligence-powered tools to mine people’s metadata—a much-needed warning at a time when the use of AI tools is gaining traction.
Luca Netz
Pudgy Penguins CEO and IP owner Luca Netz has built an NFT empire of adorable avian creatures despite a deep downturn in the market for crypto collectibles.
Pudgy Penguins’ remarkable growth kicked into high gear with the launch of Webkinz-like Pudgy World in 2024, and it was later helped by the hype around its upcoming Solana-based PENGU token launch.
Pudgy Penguins’ floor price—meaning the price of a given collection’s least valuable token—surged to an all-time high of about $134,000 worth of Ethereum in mid-December, more than tripling in price since the start of the year, CoinGecko data shows. It’s the second most valuable profile picture (PFP) project on the market as of this writing, behind only the influential CryptoPunks.
Pudgy Penguins also continued to waddle its way into the hearts of mainstream consumers in 2024, as its real-world toy collection expanded into Walmart, Target, and Walgreens shelves across the U.S. and Canada.
In addition to his work on Pudgy Penguins, Netz is also a devoted angel investor to several Web3 projects, including women-led companies such as Chipped.
Gracy Chen
Bitget CEO Gracy Chen has led the world’s 11th-largest exchange by daily trading volume since May 2024. And despite the newness of her tenure, Chen is already making her mark.
Chen helped the trading platform strike a major deal with Spanish soccer league La Liga, raising the exchange’s profile in Europe and Latin America. And under her leadership, Bitget also expanded its presence in Europe, establishing its first regional hub in Lithuania.
Bitget CEO Gracy Chen. Photo: Gracy Chen
The moves are part of the platform’s broader strategy to court new users in markets throughout the world. Meanwhile, Chen’s Bitget has promoted the development of the crypto industry through its $100 million “Web3 Fund.”
In addition to her work at Bitget, the executive has also spearheaded charitable programs such as Blockchain4Her, an initiative that aims to promote gender inclusivity and diversity in the crypto industry. Chen is also a delegate to the United Nations’ Conference on the Status of Women.
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