Who is the single most influential person in Bitcoin?

[Chain Clash]

In other words:
If you had to choose one real person to represent Bitcoin (in the public or in a debate against other crypto currency representatives), who should it be?

(It's clear that Bitcoin isn't led or represented by any single one person officially, which is what makes that question so hard to answer. It's also clear that this is feature, not a bug!)

[mk4]

On the top of my head, Andreas Antonopoulos. Dude has been teaching about Bitcoin pretty much since it's existence. Sure, there definitely are smarter cypherpunks out there, but one huge plus Andreas has is his passion with speaking and teaching; which makes learning from him much much more effective. He has already spoken in front of a senate in the past(Canada)[1]. I suggest giving it a watch if you're interested. (It's almost 2 hrs long)

Unfortunately it looks like Andreas really doesn't like attending debates. If he did, he'd definitely murder most(if not all) the skeptics.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUNGFZDO8mM

[big_daddy]

Andreas Antonopoulos is my favorite public Bitcoin AMBASSADOR

He selflessly shares knowledge and spreads good words about Bitcoin
For noobs, I will recommend his Youtube channel as a MUST

[Chain Clash]

To date, I think it is difficult to single out one person, rather it is a group of people.

A group as in "the Bitcoin core devs" or multiple individuals who you deem have kinda equal weight?

[Jating]

I would tend to agree with Andreas Antonopoulos here. As he has been talking about bitcoin even prior to the huge pump we have seen in 2017. But this guy seems low key though, doesn't want to take attentions but he continue to move forward with his bitcoin lectures and been posting it in youtube. He even has a Q&A portion as far as I'm concern.

He's the only one of top of my head right now, there are others, but it's obvious that they have their own motive behind (like those Venture Capitalist individuals).

[qiwoman2]

Andreas Antonopoulos is by far the best and most serious contender for the best Bitcoin Advocate prize. I wish I had listened to him more in the earlier days and bagged a few hundred  BTC when it was really really cheapo lol. Oh well, at least now I can collect satoshis from faucets again and hope MCAFEE'S prediction of a two million USD Bitcoin comes to pass in my lifetime lol. I do also believe Antonopoulos has done a much better job than Jihan Wu and Craig Wright who forked up BTC just for their own ends, otherwise BTC would have been worth over 50k USD I think by now, but those two did damage to the main Coin and took a big part of the market share. I hope more people will recognise Antonopoulos for his hard work in getting the name of Bitcoin out there.

[Lmaooo]

Andreas Antonopoulos and Mike Novogratz either between the two will do just fine. But Mr. Antonopoulos is the prominent bitcoin speaker on so many different occasions. On the other hand, we have got Mr. Novogratz who is the biggest bitcoin bull on the planet followed by Arthur Hayes, and Tim Draper.  



Mr. Andreas Antonopoulos lecturing the crowd about the bitcoin

[rijaljun]

I would say Vitalik, although he's Ethereum founder and more to Ethereum than to Bitcoin, he's decent enough to speak about Bitcoin. He would be great at debating with his smart minds.

Also, influencer must be able to influence those who don't really understand about Bitcoin and not those who already knew so I think it is him.

[gentlemand]

Andreas has no influence whatsoever. He doesn't control anything. Most Bitcoin fans won't know who he is as many won't speak English. Plenty of English speakers never go anywhere near Youtube. He's very careful to never take a position on anything so clearly doesn't want any influence.

At this particular moment in time the person with the most potential influence over price, uptake and mining is probably Xi Jinping.

[buwaytress]

You're definitely not making it clear in your Thread title;)

Most influential person may not necessarily be the person I'd choose to represent Bitcoin in a public debate. Not that I'd even want anyone to represent it, even if Bitcoin were such a project (which as you point out, it's not!).

Reminds me of Times magazine person of the year some time ago, where it was a blank front cover, supposedly a mirror representing... "you".

We are the only person we rely on to represent what Bitcoin is to us, since only we can say how it matters to us and how we use it. The diversity in stories and use case is cause for celebration, and a true reflection of just how really, really different Bitcoin is compared to any other form of money (and yes, even compared to "rivals" in the same asset class!).

[CryptoBry]

In other words: If you had to choose one real person to represent Bitcoin (in the public or in a debate against other crypto currency representatives), who should it be? (It's clear that Bitcoin isn't led or represented by any single one person officially, which is what makes that question so hard to answer. It's also clear that this is feature, not a bug!)

Nobody can ever replace the influence and the name Satoshi Nakamoto to be representing Bitcoin in any discourse and debates. The man knows everything about Bitcoin but since he is not here with us, I actually do not believe that there should be someone who should occupy this position of being ambassador for Bitcoin. Rather, just like the idea of decentralization, this is a community effort with many people contributing something no matter how little or how big for the welfare and further development of this cryptocurrency.

Andreas Antonopoulos is my favorite public Bitcoin AMBASSADOR. He selflessly shares knowledge and spreads good words about Bitcoin
For noobs, I will recommend his Youtube channel as a MUST

I have a deep respect and admiration for this man and if ever there is really that need to choose a very good, well-versed and professional ambassador it should be this guy. However, since I firmly believe that Bitcoin is a community effort and a technology to be safeguarded by a group of people with the same mindset, I am adding the names of  Gavin Andersen, Charles Lee, Nick Szabo and Brian Armstrong as possible candidates. Of course, these guys have their own sets of strengths and weaknesses so some people may or may not some of them.

[Chain Clash]

Andreas has no influence whatsoever. He doesn't control anything. Most Bitcoin fans won't know who he is as many won't speak English. Plenty of English speakers never go anywhere near Youtube. He's very careful to never take a position on anything so clearly doesn't want any influence.

At this particular moment in time the person with the most potential influence over price, uptake and mining is probably Xi Jinping.

This is a very interesting point as we're obviously biased towards English speaking influencers. I wouldn have no idea who (apart from the Xi Jinping) would be relevant on a global scale in languages other than English. From an English-speaking community point of view the rest of the world might seem irrelevant, but it probably excludes quite a lot of people.

[Haunebu]

This is subjective and can only be decided through some sort of election process if you ask me. Its like asking 'Who is the most powerful man/woman in the world?'. In my opinion, a team(Not a single person) who have in-depth knowledge of BTC and the blockchain would get my vote.

This is vital since majority of the world would probably debate against BTC which is why this would help even out the odds to some extent. People like Brian Armstrong, Chanpeng Zhao, Andreas Antonopoulos etc should be a part of such a team in my opinion.

[n0ne]

Most of the preference were Andreas Antonopoulos. He has got great knowledge about bitcoin, and he himself serves as a consultant for most bitcoin related startups. What he got as gift in terms of bitcoin itself will describe the quality of his ability. He has received more than hundreds of bitcoin as gift from users around the globe. On some issues he might not have a solution, but his works on briefing about bitcoin is truly perfect.

[electronicash]

Bitcoin community would benefit if Craig Wright will represent in a debate. He is influential, he speaks all time in any conferences, its just that no one asks him live about his claim. its a chance for him to really prove himself of what he is claiming and if he can't prove himself to be real satoshi in the debate, i guess we then had expose the impostor.

i'd be watching in disbelief if Xi Jinping speaks about BTC.

[Dabs]

I'd say, Yifu Guo, the man behind the first Avalon ASIC miners. He may not have started it, but it fueled an arms race to have the fastest mining machines. I think it was only a few dozen or hundred gigahash back then, but it was more than any GPU could do. Then of course several months and several companies later, the current king would be Bitmain. I'd say quite influential because of his hardware.

Maybe Friedcat ...

But those are all guys in the past. If you're talking today or currently, then I'd say it would be the Core developers. It all depends on your definition of "influential".

If it's not just one single person, then it's all ten thousand people who run full nodes.

[Chain Clash]

This is subjective and can only be decided through some sort of election process if you ask me. Its like asking 'Who is the most powerful man/woman in the world?'. In my opinion, a team(Not a single person) who have in-depth knowledge of BTC and the blockchain would get my vote.

This is vital since majority of the world would probably debate against BTC which is why this would help even out the odds to some extent. People like Brian Armstrong, Chanpeng Zhao, Andreas Antonopoulos etc should be a part of such a team in my opinion.

Yeah, this is really a question asking for opinions, not looking for a truth. It's really interesting which answers come up, as obviously metrics like "Twitter followers" aren't really representative (after all, people tweet about all kinds of things, not just Bitcoin).

The lack of a centralized power (even if it was a group of people) is one of Bitcoin's biggest strengths, but at the same time some might say it's one of its biggest weaknesses, as well.

How about actually doing a mock-vote, maybe using BTC stakes?

[Dreamr]

Definitely, Andreas Antonopoulos, he is the most famous bitcoin speaker all over the world - He is everywhere on YouTube trying to teach people how bitcoin works and why people should trust bitcoin. After Andreas Antonopoulos, we can add "Max Keiser" to the list for the real bitcoin believers for the last 10 years.

[DannyHamilton]

In other words:
If you had to choose one real person to represent Bitcoin (in the public or in a debate against other crypto currency representatives), who should it be?

I choose me.

I don't mean, me Danny Hamilton, I mean we each should strive to be the most influential person in our own lives. To those who we work with, live with, and communicate with, we should work to be knowledgable enough to be the best representative of Bitcoin that we can be.

That being said, I'll also nominate me, Danny Hamilton, for your list  (are we allowed to nominate ourselves)?

[Dabs]

I second the motion for Danny.