The 5 most influential crypto market players in the year when $2 trillion wiped out

In this historic year for cryptocurrencies, five crypto players stand out as having the most influence over the current state of the crypto market, landing on the MarketWatch 50 list of the most influential people in the markets. Two of them, Sam Bankman-Fried, CEO of FTX, and Changpeng Zhao, CEO of Binance, were locked in a duel on Monday. Zhao said Sunday that Binance would sell its remaining tokens of FTX’s FTT, with Bankman-Fried answers that “a competitor is trying to go after us with false rumors.” It continues to be an eventful year for crypto, and here are the five crypto players who have had the most influence on the current state of digital currencies.

Sam Bankman-Fried

In three years, Sam Bankman-Fried, or SBF as he is called, has come out of nowhere and become the closest crypto has to a central banker. He built the world’s second largest centralized crypto exchange, FTX, and controls the trading company Alameda Research. In 2022, Bankman-Fried, 30, tried to prop up the digital currency market by making nearly $1 billion in commitments to crypto firms amid the crash. Anthony Scaramucci anointed him “the new John Pierpont Morgan” and Bankman-Fried later bought a stake in Scaramucci’s financial firm. He offered a $400 million bailout to crypto lending platform BlockFi and $485 million in credit support to crypto broker Voyager Digital, which eventually filed for bankruptcy. FTX acquires Voyager’s assets. Bankman-Fried even took a 7.6% stake in Robinhood Markets. Much of FTX’s revenue is generated through leveraged offerings, which are banned in the US, but Bankman-Fried has pushed for industry-friendly crypto regulations in the US and around the world. He hosted his own conference panel in April alongside Bill Clinton and Tony Blair.

Changpeng Zhao

Changpeng Zhao controls the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, enabling $70 billion worth of daily trading this year in more than 500 listed cryptocurrencies and leveraged products related to them. Binance handles around two-thirds of the world’s cryptocurrency trading that takes place through a centralized exchange. In many ways, the cryptocurrency market is now shaped by the man crypto enthusiasts refer to as CZ. A coder with experience in both market-making and high-frequency trading, CZ has moved from China to Japan and Dubai since founding Binance in 2017. The company has no official headquarters and has offered access to leveraged derivatives that are illegal in many countries. But this year, CZ has pursued a regulatory strategy that saw Binance win regulatory approval in France. He also got Binance to invest $500 million in Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter.

Alex Mashinsky

Alex Mashinsky built a crypto lender that claimed 1.7 million customers and a peak of $20 billion in assets by paying interest as high as 17% APY on crypto deposits and lending digital assets to other companies. Celsius Network emerged alongside several other lightly regulated cryptocurrency companies that offered traditional banking services. But as of June, Celsius and at least four other firms halted all withdrawals, exchanges and transfers between accounts. Celsius filed for bankruptcy protection in July and the debacle put further pressure on cryptocurrency prices. When the situation at Celsius first became clear, Bitcoin plunged from $30,000 to $20,000 and the total market cap of digital currencies fell below $1 trillion for the first time since January 2021. Mashinsky left the CEO position in September, leaving behind a smoldering wreckage.

Do Kwon

Born in South Korea and educated at Stanford University, Do Kwon co-founded Terraform Labs, which backed Terra, once among the most popular blockchains. Terra’s stablecoin TerraUSD (now TerraClassicUSD), was supposed to trade one-to-one against the US dollar, but in May it fell off the peg and later traded near zero. Luna, another cryptocurrency that backed TerraUSD, also crashed. A combined market value of nearly $50 billion of the two coins was wiped out in a week. To defend TerraUSD’s link, Luna Foundation Guard sold more than 80,000 bitcoins in its reserve, accelerating this year’s selloff of the largest cryptocurrency. Terra’s collapse was also a blow to several crypto companies and funds. Crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital, for example, lost more than $200 million on its investment in Luna and failed to repay loans it took out from major crypto lenders, leading to an industry-wide credit crunch. Three Arrows has been ordered liquidated by a court in the British Virgin Islands. Kwon is under investigation in South Korea and Interpol has issued a “red notice” for his arrest.

Su Zhu

Co-founder and former CEO of Three Arrows Capital, Su Zhu was at the center of this year’s credit crunch in crypto and helped push down digital currency prices. His highly leveraged Singapore-based hedge fund managed about $10 billion at its peak and made big bets on digital currencies like Luna that Zhu pushed on social media. When Luna and other coins crashed, Three Arrows was unable to meet margin requirements and collapsed into bankruptcy in June. Voyager Digital was a crypto platform that loaned about $650 million to Three Arrows and itself filed for bankruptcy protection as a result. Digital Currency Group’s Genesis crypto brokerage was owed $1.2 billion by Three Arrows when it failed. Zhu has been unsure of his whereabouts lately, but friends say he is lying low in Dubai.

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