, today I'll share the Crypto Hall of Fame.
Based on past historical experience, making it onto the Hall of Fame list is often not a good thing. Previously, 30% of the outcomes for those on the Hall of Fame list were not great:
Sam Bankman-Fried of FTX (in prison - convicted) Do Kwon of Terra (in prison - awaiting trial), Su Zhu of 3AC (in prison - awaiting trial) Founder of Tornado Cash (in prison - awaiting trial) Barry Silbert of DCG and the Winklevoss twins of Gemini (charged with civil fraud in New York) CZ of Binance (pleaded guilty - sentencing in February)
Anyway, take a look at the new list of ten Web3 celebrities this year:
Larry Fink（BlackRock）& Cathie Wood（ARK Invest）
The main driver was ETFs. Larry Fink's attitude towards crypto evolved from initial skepticism to becoming more open and supportive in recent years. ARK Invest was also very active during the ETF application process.
Jeremy Allaire & Dante Disparte（Circle）
The USDC stablecoin has ceded some market share to its competitor Tether, but its long-standing compliance-first strategy has made it a hot candidate for an IPO (Initial Public Offering) in 2024.
Kristin Smith（The Blockchain Association）& Michael Carcaise（Fair Shake PAC）
BA's primary work includes handling legislative and regulatory issues on behalf of its members, protecting and promoting the interests of the cryptocurrency industry. In the face of ongoing hostile regulation, the importance of this organization has reached unprecedented heights.
Fair Shake focuses on providing blockchain innovators with the ability to develop their networks under clearer regulatory and legal frameworks, which is crucial for the development of a broad open blockchain economy in the United States. In the 2024 U.S. elections, Fair Shake has raised $78 million to support pro-crypto candidates, committed to advancing technological innovation and addressing issues related to bad actors within the industry.
Senator Elizabeth Warren (and her supporters)
Many in the Biden White House and its bank regulatory agencies are hostile to the cryptocurrency industry, believing that the sector poses more harm than potential benefits to the public. This open hostility is largely attributed to Elizabeth.
Elon Musk (along with other celebrities Tucker Carlson and Vivek Ramaswamy)
These three figures are generally considered to have had a positive impact on cryptocurrencies, and supporting their success is important for the crypto industry.
Musk's acquisition of Twitter has had a significant impact on freedom of speech and openness within the cryptocurrency industry.
Tucker Carlson has altered the way we discuss topics such as foreign wars, censorship, and government spending. His positive stance on cryptocurrency as a tool to check state power is also a good thing.
Vivek Ramaswamy could become the first X President (or at least highly influential in a second Trump administration or by 2028). His curated long-form videos and posts on X have gained significant attention.
Michael Sonnenshein & Craig Salm（Grayscale）
Grayscale's AUM reached $35 billion, with annualized fees generating up to $700 million in high profits. Grayscale's new trust products (beyond GBTC and ETHE) appear to be experiencing a hype cycle reminiscent of 2017 or 2020. Its LINK product has increased about 8x year-to-date, while its Solana product has quadrupled. Meanwhile, Sonnenshein has emerged as an industry leader.
Nic Carter & Matt Walsh（Castle Island Ventures）
Nic gained prominence for exposing corruption within banking regulators tied to the Washington-driven "Chokepoint 2.0" agenda. His long-advocated Proof-of-Reserves led to the first legislative proposal addressing this regulation. His decentralized bounty program rewarded data detectives working to correct actually illegal numbers.
Matt Walsh uncovered the absurd story behind Prometheus, the SEC darling—a “registered” broker-dealer for “digital asset securities.” Matt was also where I first heard warnings about SAB 121, a clever accounting rule designed by the SEC to prevent Wall Street firms from backing crypto custody.
Lucas Vogelsang（Centrifuge）、Denelle Dixon（Stellar）& Christine Moy（Apollo）
The main contribution of these three is to bridge the gap between Wall Street finance and crypto startups.
Lucas's Centrifuge is an early leader in the RWA space, boasting the highest token market capitalization, the largest share of private loans, and the lowest default-to-active-loan ratio among the top three RWA credit protocols.
Denelle's Stellar attracted early interest and support from financial institutions that viewed its platform as a safe place for experiments with tokenized government bonds.
Christine Moy previously led JPMorgan's blockchain team, which has released the most practical crypto products in Wall Street circles and has already settled $1 trillion worth of tokenized government bond trades through its Onyx team. She now serves as the Director of Crypto, Data, and AI Strategy at investment giant Apollo, leading the concept validation of the Apollo-JPMorgan "Guardian Project" for crypto collaboration.
Dan Romero（Farcaster）& 0x Racer（friend.tech）
The Farcaster user community is a potential alternative to X's community product on either side. friend.tech deserves credit for cracking the gamification code of DeSoc and maintaining Dunbar's number within fan groups.
The DeFi Gang(s)
Different teams are at different stages of their lifecycle. The young ones in Solana are partying, while the veterans in Ethereum are discussing protocol politics at the country club.
Summary:
2024 will be a crucial watershed year to see if Crypto crosses the chasm into a new phase amidst the jostling between Crypto Natives and TradFi, RWA, and policy folks, or if it gets relegated back to being toys at the kids’ table.
If there were more space, it would go to the folks at Coinbase, Solana, and Celestia.