Original Title: "Top 10 Influential People in Bitcoin in 2023: Will They Call the Shots in 2024?"

Original Author: Huohuo, Plain Language Blockchain

In 2023, the entire encryption industry experienced ups and downs. The Silicon Valley banking crisis at the beginning of the year continued to shake the market, which had just suffered heavy losses from FTX. Subsequently, various regulatory storms began to emerge, causing industry giants to feel threatened.

However, "danger" and "opportunity" always go hand in hand. With the approaching Bitcoin halving, the expectation of Bitcoin spot ETF approval, and the rise of BRC20 narrative leading to the inscription craze of various public chains, the combination of various narratives has brought about a surge of market enthusiasm at the end of the year. Bitcoin once surpassed $45,000 with a year-on-year increase of over 150%, and the market entered the early stage of a bull market.

So, who are the influential figures in this ever-changing industry? Will the market trend in 2024 depend on them?

01 Retreat in the Face of the Torrent - CZ

On November 23, 2023, CZ announced his resignation as BN CEO, stating that he will not hold an executive position. However, he will still retain the majority of Binance's shares and will retire as an investor behind the scenes. The news shocked the entire industry.

Why did CZ suddenly resign? The reason is that on November 22, 2023, BN and its CEO Zhao Changpeng (CZ) pleaded guilty to federal charges in the United States. BN was charged with three counts, including money laundering, operating an unlicensed money transfer business, and violating US sanctions. In order to continue operating, BN reached a settlement with the SEC at the cost of paying a huge fine of $4.368 billion, and CZ resigned.

Actually, this lawsuit has been going on for 5 years. As early as 2018, the US Department of Justice began investigating BN's alleged crimes of unlicensed remittances, money laundering, and violation of US sanctions. It's just that it finally came to an end this year.

However, looking back at BN's growth from a small and transparent company founded in 2017 to today's industry leader, CZ has made great contributions. It can be said that he has built a diversified business system for the industry from scratch, including spot, futures, options, mining pools, cloud services, public chains and other fields. At the same time, he has developed a comprehensive Web3 group from a single CEX and spread its products, services and brand influence globally.

Over the past 6 years, BN has achieved a leading position in the fields of trading platforms, public chains, wallets, investments, etc. under the leadership of CZ in the industry. However, as BN has become an industry giant, CZ may have realized that as an industry leader, the biggest challenge at this time may no longer be competition, but to take on the responsibility of leading the cryptocurrency industry towards compliance and development.

Therefore, after CZ stepped down, some people referred to it as a move to "burn oneself to light up the way for future compliance and innovation", even paving the way for the "ETF in progress".

02 One Hammer Blow - SEC Chairman

Since taking over as SEC chairman, especially in 2023, Gary Gensler has launched a strict crackdown on cryptocurrency regulation, which has attracted a lot of attention in the crypto industry. Most notably, he led the SEC's lawsuit against Ripple and imposed millions of dollars in fines on cryptocurrency trading platforms such as Kraken. This has sparked a wave of fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) throughout the entire crypto industry and raised concerns among other top platforms.

Speaking of his crackdown on encryption, what made him famous was the SEC's lawsuit against Ripple, a digital payment protocol led by him in December 2020. The case, in the name of protecting consumers, severely cracked down on the pledge services of encryption platforms and attempted to turn all tokens into securities.

And the recent successful lawsuits against CZ and BN are another regulatory milestone for the SEC under the leadership of Gensler. In addition to these two cryptocurrency litigation cases, according to incomplete statistics, the SEC has designed other cryptocurrency cases:

1) Bittrex and its former CEO have been accused of operating an unregistered exchange, broker, and clearing agency.

2) Two individuals suspected of Ormeus Coin fraud were fined over $23 million.

3) Tron founder Justin Sun and his company have been accused of illegally selling unregistered securities, fraud, and market manipulation.

4) Terraform Labs and Do Kwon have been accused of planning a multi-billion dollar cryptocurrency securities fraud.

5) Trade Coin Club is accused of being involved in a $295 million cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme.

6) SEC filed a lawsuit against Dragonchain, accusing them of issuing unregistered cryptographic securities.

7) SEC accuses 11 people of creating and promoting Forsage, involving a $300 million fraudulent Ponzi scheme.

8) The United States Second Circuit Court of Appeals orders Terraform Labs and Do Kwon to comply with the SEC subpoena.

9) SEC halts the distribution of tokens for Telegram's TON cryptocurrency project, citing allegations of selling unregistered securities.

10) SEC charged Block.one and reached a settlement by paying a civil penalty of $24 million, involving the issuance of unregistered digital token EOS.

In short, it can be said that with the development and growth of the encryption world, the regulatory hammer of the SEC under the leadership of Gensler is always present.

Actually, as early as January of this year, Coinbase acquired FairX, a derivatives exchange regulated by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). This acquisition is a key step for Coinbase to provide crypto derivatives to US retail and institutional clients. He also established the "Stand With Crypto" organization, hoping to protect the industry from government criticism.

From a macro perspective, with the regulatory crackdown on BN and similar accusations against another competitor, Kraken, the development of Coinbase as an individual entity is a positive factor, resulting in a 200% increase in Coinbase's price and a market value exceeding $25 billion this year. However, Coinbase's development is not without challenges, as it will face the overall poor development of the cryptocurrency market. Although some settlement agreements have resolved some major issues in the cryptocurrency industry this year, a greater catalyst is still needed to boost the overall market.

Currently, the next important catalyst appears to be the possibility of regulatory approval for a Bitcoin ETF by regulatory agencies. As previously mentioned, BlackRock announced the application for the launch of a Bitcoin ETF, which will be custodied by Coinbase. This has boosted hopes for the approval of the ETF and led to the rise of Bitcoin and Coinbase. It is worth paying attention to how the situation develops in the future.

09 AI Cheating - OpenAI CEO

Since its release on November 30, 2022, ChatGPT has quickly become one of the fastest-growing consumer applications in history, with a monthly active user base of 100 million. Its parent company, OpenAI, and CEO Sam Altman have received significant attention as a result.

However, except for the ChatGPT's popularity at the beginning of the year, last month, a letter sent by several researchers to the board of directors claiming that OpenAI has made a significant AI discovery that may threaten humanity and lead to the dismissal of Altman caused a stir.

On November 18, 2023, OpenAI announced through its official website that Sam Altman, the current CEO and known as the "father of ChatGPT," will resign from his position as CEO and leave the board of directors. Following the news, a large number of employees announced that they would follow him and also choose to resign. The news came as a surprise, and then he announced shocking news that he would join Microsoft with his assistant. However, in a surprising turn of events, Sam Altman became the CEO of OpenAI again just five days after being fired.

Altman stated on X that his recent decisions, including joining Microsoft, were all made to preserve OpenAI's team and mission. Now that OpenAI has a new board and the support of Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Altman hopes to return to OpenAI and maintain an excellent partnership with Microsoft.

Translation: I love OpenAI, and everything I have done in the past few days is to maintain the integrity of this team and its mission. When I decided to join Microsoft last Sunday, it was clearly the best choice for me and the team. With the support of the new board and Satya, I...

Also in July of this year, Altman created and launched the Worldcoin project and token, which aims to address global online identity verification and income inequality issues. As most people around the world currently cannot verify their identities digitally, Worldcoin hopes to build the world's largest and most fair digital identity and currency system to help everyone access the global financial system. However, the project is currently facing some regulatory obstacles.

AI is one of the directions worth paying attention to in the encryption industry in 2024, which Sam Altman cannot ignore.

10 Big Macs finally profitable - Salvadoran President

According to recent reports, as of December 4th, 2023, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele stated that, based on the current market price of Bitcoin, selling it would not only recoup 100% of the investment, but also generate profits of over $3.6 million. All of this is thanks to the efforts of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele.

As a small country in Central America, El Salvador does not have its own legal currency and chooses to use the US dollar. This has had some impact on the economy, as those working abroad need to pay expensive remittance fees, which is not conducive to increasing GDP. Additionally, approximately 70% of Salvadorans do not have bank accounts or credit cards, and the unstable economic situation is not favorable for the government. In order to repair the economy to some extent, El Salvador needs to attract new investors.

除开外部因素，Bukele 也是一个比特币的真正爱好者。Therefore, under Bukele's push, on June 9, 2021, El Salvador officially passed a bill with an "absolute majority" vote to make Bitcoin a legal tender in the country, making El Salvador the first country to announce Bitcoin as a legal tender. This decision has attracted widespread attention worldwide. Since implementing this policy, El Salvador has begun to actively promote digital payments and financial inclusion, hoping to provide residents with a wider range of financial services and convenience through the adoption of Bitcoin. In addition, it is reported that the country has been purchasing one Bitcoin per day since the policy was announced.

Additionally, this move is seen as an innovative attempt towards the financial system and may impact the legal currency policy choices of other countries in the future. As time goes on, the relationship between El Salvador and Bitcoin will become an important case study for global digital currency experiments.

Attachment 1 Faithful Believer - Michael Saylor

Michael Saylor, the CEO of MicroStrategy, is a prominent figure in the cryptocurrency industry and a Bitcoin whale. It is said that he will reach a net worth of $3 billion by 2023, and he holds over 120,000 Bitcoins, which has made a significant contribution to achieving his net worth goal.

Michael Saylor began investing in Bitcoin in 2020. He purchased a large amount of Bitcoin in his personal capacity at MicroStrategy and invested company funds in Bitcoin. In the following months, Saylor's bet on Bitcoin doubled or even tripled, borrowing more than $2 billion in debt to buy more volatile cryptocurrencies. Since then, Saylor has been a loyal fan of Bitcoin.

As FTX, Three Arrows Capital, Celsius and other companies went bankrupt one after another, last year was undoubtedly a year of perseverance for cryptocurrency investors. However, even in the "low period" of Bitcoin, it still received support from Saylor. On November 13th of this year, Saylor looked forward to the future of Bitcoin at the 2023 Australian Cryptocurrency Conference. He emphasized the upcoming Bitcoin halving event in 2024, and predicted that this will be the stage when Bitcoin enters its "adolescence" and becomes a mainstream asset. It is expected that from 2024 to 2028, large technology companies and banks will widely adopt Bitcoin and integrate it into their respective products and services.

附加 2 买大饼就完了——《富爸爸，穷爸爸》作者 Robert Kiyosaki

Additional 2 Just Buy Pancakes - Author of "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" Robert Kiyosaki

According to the latest news on December 11th, Robert Kiyosaki, the author of "Rich Dad Poor Dad", stated in a post on X platform that the US government is stealing wealth through the people's money, and it's not too late to realize this now. The banking system has gone bankrupt, so take action while you can still buy gold, silver, and Bitcoin. Robert Kiyosaki also stated that his multiple warnings have come true, and the next warning target is the S&P, which will severely hit millions of 401k and personal retirement accounts.

Translation: I want to thank Smart Silver Stacker because since 2010, he has been mocking my advice to encourage people to buy and store silver. Like Paul Revere or Chicken Little, warning people that the US government is stealing our wealth through our currency is not easy. But you can laugh as long as you want. It's still not too late, our banking system has already collapsed. Take the opportunity to buy gold, silver, and Bitcoin while you still can. Your friends and family will laugh at you and me like Smart Silver Stacker. By the way, I predicted the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008 on Wolf's show, and you can find me on CNN's Wolf Blitzer show. Wolf laughed at the time too. In 2023, I appeared on Fox Business's Neil Cavuto show, predicting the collapse of Swiss Credit, and mentioning that UBS may be next. Laugh if you want, the global banking crisis is imminent. Remember my warning in "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" published in 1997: "Savers are losers" and "Your house is not an asset", which became a reality in 2008. People are still laughing at those predictions in 1997. Stay tuned for my next warning. The Standard & Poor's Index (S&P) will be next, causing serious damage to millions of 401k and IRA accounts. Take care.

Those who are interested in finance must have read the book "Rich Dad Poor Dad", which was published in 1997 and sold millions of copies, translated into more than 50 languages, making the author Robert Toru Kiyosaki a famous financial figure. His connection with cryptocurrency dates back to 2017, when he expressed interest in Bitcoin and began to suggest paying attention to and understanding cryptocurrency.

Moreover, this month's call for action is not the first time Robert has promoted Bitcoin. In 2022, Robert Kiyosaki also tweeted that Bitcoin is almost like a commodity, more like gold, silver, or oil. Secondly, the US Securities and Exchange Commission also classifies Bitcoin as a commodity, while other cryptocurrencies are considered securities.

Translation:

Question: Are you investing in Bitcoin? Answer: Yes, I am investing. I am very excited about Bitcoin. Why? Because Bitcoin is classified as a commodity, just like gold, silver, and oil. Most of the other crypto tokens are classified as securities, and the regulations of the US Securities and Exchange Commission will destroy most of them. I am buying more Bitcoin.

Just publicly expressing support for cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, without disclosing the specific amount of investment, other than indicating that they are a Bitcoin investor.

13 Summary

Although 2023 is a low point in the encryption cycle, both speculators and true builders are pushing the encryption industry forward in their own way.

These influential figures not only affect market trends, but also play a leading or driving role in the development of future cryptocurrencies. Regardless of how the industry develops, over time, they are undoubtedly an important part of this historical picture.

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