Bitcoin Forum

Cryptocurrency is a multi-billion dollar industry. With a current market cap of $226 billion USD (at the time of writing), this once fledgling industry has grown into the massive market that it is today. Let’s take a look at some of the key players in the crypto industry: The teams behind the top 5 market caps, and how they got to where they are today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KP_hGPQVLpA

BITCOIN (BTC)

Bitcoin is the OG blockchain and cryptocurrency. It was created as a response to the global financial crisis in 2008. On 31 September 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto released his whitepaper “Bitcoin: A Peer to Peer Electronic Cash System”. Since then, Bitcoin has grown into a $150 billion network (at the time of writing), with roughly 5.8 million active users, largely thanks to exchanges and trading platforms facilitating the trade of BTC, like eToro (https://www.etoro.com), Binance (https://www.binance.com/en) or Coinbase (https://www.coinbase.com).

 

Bitcoin’s price peaked in December 2017, when it reached around $20,000 USD per coin. So, who are the teams behind Bitcoin’s rise to the top of the cryptocurrency empire?

 

- Satoshi Nakamoto: The mysterious founder and creator of Bitcoin – Nakamoto’s true identity remains a mystery to this day. Many so-called “Faketoshi’s” have been named in the media, including Craig Wright, but so far none have proven to be the real deal. Satoshi is undoubtedly amongst the key players in the crypto industry.

- Roger Ver: Roger Ver is the Executive Chairman (and former CEO) of Bitcoin.com, and leader of Bitcoin Cash.

RIPPLE (XRP)
 

Ripple was founded by Jeb McCaleb and Chris Larsen in 2012, although the concept was originally conceived by Ryan Fugger in 2004. Ripple was built by Arthur Britto and David Schwartz, and Ripple’s coin is XRP. It’s current market cap is $12.6 billion.

 

ETHEREUM (ETH)
 

Ethereum is another blockchain, built on the basis of smart contracts. Vitalik Buterin founded Ethereum in 2014, and it went live in 2015 – with 72 million coins “pre-mined”. Ethereum’s token is called ETH and it has a current market cap of $20 billion.

 

Other key players include Anthony Di Iorio, Charles Hoskinson, Mihai Alisie, and Amir Chetrit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSN5BaCzsbo

BITCOIN CASH (BCH)
 

Bitcoin Cash came about as a result of political disputes within the Bitcoin developer community. In 2017, Bitcoin underwent a hard fork – and separated into two systems: Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash. Bitcoin Cash has a current market cap of $4.12 billion, and its coin is BCH.

Key players in Bitcoin Cash include Roger Ver, who is also the Executive Chairman of Bitcoin.com. Bitcoin Cash experienced another hard fork in 2018, but we’ll touch on that at a later stage.

 

LITECOIN (LTC)
 

Litecoin is another hard fork of Bitcoin, and was founded in 2011 by Charlie Lee – the CEO. Litecoin is developed by the Litecoin Core Development Team, and remains one of the top 10 cryptocurrencies to date. Franklyn Richards is the COO of Litecoin.

Litecoin has a current market cap of $3.5 billion.

 

CRYPTOCURRENCY: THE FUTURE OF GLOBAL FINANCES
 

Without a doubt, cryptocurrency has a huge role to play in the future of global finances. In just over a decade, it has grown into a $226 billion industry – and is only going to get bigger. When looking at the key players in the crypto industry, one thing is clear: the level of ingenuity and creativity is unparalleled. Cryptocurrency is only going to get bigger, so we’re due for an incredibly exciting future.

https://itsblockchain.com/crypto-players/

Nice read, especially for newbies. Talking about Craig Wright, I wonder why someone will come up with a new cryptocurrency (BSV)  and still claim to be founder of the pace setter (BTC).  However, I didn't like the saga between him and other big shots like CZ of Binance. Citing your last paragraph when you mentioned that crypto has a huge role to play in global finance, do you think this is possible without regulations in the real sense? Also, there is still lots of improvement to be done. For instance, a big business might be skeptical adopting most existing blockchain projects due to scalability issues.

Obviously, in the first ten years of crypto, it has moved so very fast specially in 2017 and it really took the lime light that's why government are taking a hard line stance for now. But can they stop it? I doubt because for one the market is free and open. What they can do is regulated, but it doesn't mean that crypto enthusiast won't find a way to go around those regulations, after all we wanted decentralisation and (pseudo) anonymity.

So it will still go on the next ten years and I'm seeing trillions of marketcap dominated by those coins mentioned above, specially bitcoin, who will continue to dominate and be the face of all crypto.

Thanks for this thread, buddy, it was very interesting to read. I think the emergence of cryptocurrencies is the best thing that has happened with our world over the past 15 years. I believe cryptocurrency will become a big part of our life in the future.

Good work buddy.

You have added the courtesy site links also to learn more about it. When there is more definition based book for crypto industry alone it will be greatful for you.
Then seeing the title I thought that it is about Satoshi and viliak butterin or something.

I think its ETH that contributed to the market in 2017 and right now its slowing down. There are platforms like ETH that is almost going to takeover not to mention BNB which is growing. The key players before are still going to stay on top but there are going to be changes when it comes to where to money may come from. Asian players are going to take huge pie.

Ethereum is one of my too picks anytime, anyday.
Starting from the fact that Ethereum is the first blockchain that gave people the chance to easily create tokens from it's blockchain, Ethereum also introduced smart contracts to blockchain technology. Definitely one of my favourites.

When I saw the headline I thought its about some people who have some influence in crypto industy. But this topic is more about some coins then about people.
Well like all the lists about this matter this one is similar as others. Few top coins listed and nothing more. I like to believe that there are sleeping giants around, coins that have low value now, but huge potential. From this list I would exclude xrp and bch, to big drama around these two. There are more cleaner and trustworthy projects out there.
But that`s just my opinion, everyone here have some picks, mine are just a bit different from OP and his list.

Really useful information about top coins in crypto market with full details it will helpful for many newbie to know about those things what you mentioned in your thread and my all time favorite coins are bitcoin and eth, nice stuff from your mate.

Why do you think that? Why can't Bitcoin live without altcoins? When bitcoin appeared, there wasn't any subcoin. This should not be overlooked.

I think Bitcoin can survive alone. But I can't say the same thing about altcoins. If Bitcoin doesn't survive, make sure there's no altcoin left.

Cryptocurrencies have always seen a very cordial competition among themselves. It feels great to see some altcoins following the dominance of bitcoin closely. Although most of the major altcoins were included in the list above, a few others can also be added due to their recent performance on the market.

Well that's debatable. There were not any decentralized cryptocurrencies before, but people were building cryptocurrencies like Digicash before bitcoin for example. Bitcoin didn't appear from thin air, people were looking for solutions to an old problem and bitcoin happened to be the most elegant one. But that doesn't mean that every other research on the subject didn't pave the way and weren't equally important for getting in this space. Leaving bitcoin alone would just be quitting, and there still are problems to fix. I would rather want that people would try out the solutions with altcoins first.

I really like this informative and educative thread, accompanied by relevant sources, good work.
Influential people who are able to read the needs and apply them are innovations that are so needed now, to become popular and widely adopted by many users. We must thank their critical thinking so that many things go up with the combination of blockchain and cryptocurrency. This is still quite early, I'm sure there are other breakthroughs from creative people, so don't stop to learn and study this very beneficial ecosystem.

Thought this thread was going to be about the people rather than the cryptos, but hey I'm game.

Op's list pretty much encapsulates the biggies in the world of crypto, and I wouldn't really disagree with any of them, tho I *wish* ripple wasn't on that list.  Can't argue with that, because those coins are taken directly from the top ones on coinmarketcap.  I have always thought that market capital might not be the best measure of how good a coin is, since supply can be extremely variable but its at least a good approximation of quality.

If I had to substitute ripple with something else it would likely be dash or even doge, both of which could be considered to be 'big' players in crypto.  Newbies at least ought to be made aware of that.

This is a good introduction for newbies in the space, but there are alot of people in crypto today that history will not be kind to them, some of these people have taken advantage of the openness of the space, raise money for scam projects o project they know won't scale and pump and dump them on the market

While I agree with you that these blockchains helped paved the way for future chains, your forgetting one of the most important blockchains, the EOS blockchain and their Delegated Proof of stake consensus algorithm. Didn't EOS solve the scalability problem? EOS segued the new way to use proof of stake. Other Blockchains have completely copied there model. Look at TRON and IOST. I believe that if Bitcoin is considered blockchain generation 1.0 and Ethereum is considered blockchain generation 2.0, then surely EOS is blockchain generation 3.0, no?

I miss that bull run way back 2017. Damn, that year was crazy. Altcoins and Bitcoin are pumping at the highest peak. When will that happen again? I agree with those statements. Those cryptocurrencies are the main foundation of the market and why cryptocurrency still breathing. Imagine if we use Bitcoin alone, Bitcoin I think will be $100,000 a piece. Investors are just diversified because too many cooks are being created.

It's an interesting read for newcomers to know about the overview of current top altcoins existing in the market. Just to give them introductory to where and how these altcoins originated. Although, I think you need to add "Source: " before the last link you provided to clarify that you didn't write the article about key cryptocurrencies in the market. Good reference to TED Talks anyway, TED-Ed is one of my favorite channels on Youtube to learn something unfamiliar, or new ideology I'm curious of.

in the current conditions the crypto market is experiencing a decline against crypto or altcoin currencies and future developments no one can predict with certainty its development until now I still believe in investing using ETH in my opinion ETH is still the best altcoin to date

Bitcoin Cash is not a key player. It is a player that has become some sort of a key player because it is made from the ribs of Bitcoin but not because it offers something new, innovative, and unique. Which makes it not really a key player but just a mere shadow. The crypto industry is started by Bitcoin, developed into a wider field by Ethereum and Ripple. What has been contributed by Bitcoin Cash? Nothing except the efforts to bring Bitcoin down.

The realities took place with the conditions of this market, many people are still willing to take chances even past experiences is not good for them. Taking everything as a lesson to learn and to proceed with the intention of succeeding. Plan your investment goals and use the right pairs to make sure that it will favorable to your journey. Keep pushing if you have a good understanding of any event that will happen along the way.

Yeah, Craig Wright is a bit of a strange one in that sense. Ultimately, there's a lot of room for growth in the cryptocurrency industry, but big business is showing more and more interest in expanding their horizons. We should have an interesting few years ahead of us!

No, they definitely can't stop cryptocurrency - if that's what you're asking? They can ban it but there are always ways around. Still, it seems like more governments and businesses are realizing the value of blockchain and crypto assets, so we should really just see more growth over the coming years.

Thanks so much! Yeah, always interesting to learn about the diverse figures that make up this exciting industry. There's more to the crypto asset world than just Vitalik Buterin and Satoshi! So many incredible people doing amazing things.

Yes, all of those coins are very important for the whole industry, but crypto is something more than top 10 coins on CMC. I believe that XRP does not deserve this space and should be replaced by perspective altcoins that are decentralised.

You have worked hard before writing this topic and i appreciate you for you efforts and first instance i thought you have mentioned some infulential names in crypto market but then i realize you are talking about the coins that have changed the digital world over these past few years.Some of them like BTC and ETH will always remain on top in terms of volume and market cap due to their technology and adoption on various platforms which will prices high of both the coins.ETH was high in 2017 but this year growth signs are less due to less advancement in market and less new legit projects coming in market which use ETH as base platform so it will take time to rise but always remain in my list.Other mentioned coins are also potential until some replace them with higher technology.

Bitcoin and Ethereum would always be major players in the Cryptocurrency space no matter how things eventually turn out, but I think we are entering an era where worldwide adoption is the goal and I don't think the present blockchains would do it for us, we would need a platform that's very scalable and can handle hundreds of thousands of transactions per second and secondly, a Cryptocurrency that is definitely not volatile in price, something that is pegged to a particular value because you cannot purchase something from a merchant with say, Bitcoin and when they receive your payment, if they don't convert it and the price starts dipping, they would lose their profit and then some of tbeir capital on top, in my opinion the other players are still yet to be invented but we would be seeing them sooner than later.

I also appreciate the efforts and it was an informative post. A nice bird eye view there. Talking about the dominance f bitcoin and position of ethereum among altcoins, you are right on mark. These are going to stay above others due to the support they have received from investors. Bitcoin did everything on its own but ethereum took a lot of help from the king. Ethereum will rise again with bitcoin shortly.

Ofcourse, they have been designed for designated necessities and features. It is just sad that some alts were made for self purposes although it is not that always for community. Well anyway, with all these reasons and purposes for communities it is still hard to for alts and even for bitcoin to make it out there in the industry fully functional. So sometimes it is not about the risk that it brought but the pride of the government that is afraid to be stepped over.

Great job OP. This is a nice compilation of some personalities that are behind some of the most solid projects in the world of crypto. We should also give credit to them as we give utmost credit to Satoshi for rolling the first stone. I think you have missed some personalities in the mentioned altcoins though. Joseph Lubin, for instance, is a co-founder of Ethereum who had made a lot of contribution to the project alongside Vitalik Buterin.

You can just check every project from top 10-15 CMC and it will be key player

There's a lot of good information online that could help convince ourselves that crypto has a great future, OP did a great job on sharing these vital information,  so thumbs up to you. I am a believer of crypto as well, although this market not is facing a challenge but this way the market will grow and I believe it will survive and grow in the future, so keep believing and let's remain optimistic.