Chainlink is where digital assets meet the real world, and Nazarov is predicting TradFi and crypto will become intertwined.
Lisa Neigut: Reinventing Lightning to Reinvent Bitcoin
The Blockstream developer has been working on what she calls “Lightning v2” since 2019, and it’s poised to launch by year’s end.
Karl Floersch’s ‘Optimism’ Tech Paved the Way for Coinbase’s ‘Base’ Blockchain
The CEO of OP Labs helped create a set of tools that let developers build their own layer-2 chains.
Avery Ching: Aptos Led a Year of ‘VC Chains’
With hundreds of millions at stake, Avery Ching, co-founder of one of the year’s most-talked-about new projects, has much to prove.
Jesse Pollak Is Putting the Base in Coinbase
Coinbase’s layer-2 blockchain, which launched this year, helps the exchange to scale and reduce transaction fees. Rivals, like Kraken, are now said to be launching their own layer 2s.
Cuy Sheffield: The Reason Visa Is ‘Everywhere’ in Crypto
Perhaps more than at any other TradFi firm, Visa’s crypto unit under Sheffield has been running experiment after experiment. That’s why he’s one of CoinDesk’s Most Influential of 2023.
Stefan Berger: The Man Who Made MiCA
Stefan Berger steered through the European Union’s world-leading Markets in Crypto Assets Regulation (MiCA) this year in the aftermath of FTX and other scandals. He’s now working on a digital euro.
Jordi Baylina: Finding Solutions in Zero-Knowledge
One of Ethereum’s biggest scalability layers, Polygon, is at the forefront of a new tech trend with the launch of its zkEVM.