Blockchain 30 Under 30
Blockchain Moonshots presents The 2021 Blockchain 30 Under 30. This list consists of 30 diverse young influencers and entrepreneurs in the blockchain space. These youths who are 30 years old this year or younger have leveraged the power of blockchain to propel a number of different businesses built for impact. This list proves that blockchain technology has many practical use cases beyond the hype.
Without further ado. In alphabetical order. Read on.
1. Alishba Imran 17 (Pakistan/Canada)
Co-founder at Voltx | Previously Innovator & Researcher at The Knowledge Society
Despite being at just a mere age of 17, Alishba Imran is already a well-seasoned blockchain developer and an overall tech innovator with stints in nanotechnology, robotics and machine learning (she developed various Machine Learning algorithms studying various factors within our DNA to diagnose Malaria and Pneumonia at a 95% accuracy rate).
The entrepreneur has impressive blockchain projects under her belt. She has worked at Toronto Dominion Bank to roll out their Digital Identity platform using blockchain and machine learning optimization. She has also worked with IBM to create a platform that tracks medications in supply chain using blockchain to mitigate counterfeits.
That’s not all!
Imran has spoken at some of the world’s most innovative conferences including Google Think Telecom, Consensys in New York, Global Revolution, MicrosoftTruffleCon in Seattle and Elevate Tech Fest.
2. Anil Dukkipatty 27 (India), Sahil Kathpal 29 (India), Raunaq Vaisoha 25 (India)
Cofounders at Elemential Labs
In 2016 Raunaq Vaisoha, Anilkishen Dukkipatty and Sahil Kathpal cofounded Elemential Labs, a Mumbai-based blockchain startup. Its product Hadron has been used by institutions such as the National Stock Exchange of India to deploy, manage and scale blockchain networks. Elemential Labs raised $1 million in seed funding in a round led by venture capital firm Matrix Partners India. Other participants in the round included Investopad, Digital Currency Group, Hinduja Group, Lightspeed India, and Eight Innovate.
Dukkipatty is an active contributor to the bitcoinjs and other open source projects. He architected the platform on top of which National stock exchange’s (India) Blockchain was built. He was responsible for designing all the layers of the blockchain.
3. Arianna Simpson 29 (USA)
Investment Partner at Andreessen Horowitz & Founder at Autonomous Partners
Arianna Simpson is a partner on the a16z (Andreessen Horowitz) crypto investment team. A16z is one of the few publicly-known venture capital giants that are heavily involved in cryptocurrency. Prior to joining a16z, Arianna founded Autonomous Partners, an investment fund focused on cryptocurrencies and digital assets. She also helped launch Crystal Towers Capital, an early-stage fund investing primarily in YC companies, in 2015.
Arianna previously spent time working in sales and product roles at Facebook and BitGo, an enterprise security company for Bitcoin and other digital currencies.
4. Brian Tubergen, 29 (USA)
Cofounder at CoinList
New York, New York
The founder of CoinList, an investment platform that helps promising crypto companies raise money and allows investors to trade those companies’ cryptocurrencies. Since inception in 2017, CoinList has raised over $800 million for crypto companies, which are backed by venture firms including Sequoia, a16z, USV, GV, Bain and Lightspeed.
Prior to CoinList, he interned at Google, Microsoft and Facebook, and he was a director of product at AngelList after graduating from Princeton University.
5. Chandler Song 26 (China), Ryan Fang 25 (China)
Cofounders at Ankr Network
Founded in 2017 by former UC Berkeley roommates, Ankr Network positions itself as a distributed computing platform. Through blockchain technologies, Ankr aims to leverage idle computing power for secured cloud and data services.
Fang worked as an investment banker at Morgan Stanley while Song worked as an engineer at Amazon Web Services prior to founding Ankr.
The cofounders were drawn to blockchain since its early days, buying Bitcoin.
6. Charlie Noyes, 21 (USA)
Partner at Paradigm
Charlie Noyes is an Investment Partner at crypto venture fund Paradigm Capita. Previously, Charlie was a member of the investment team at Pantera Capital where he co-led early stage investments.
He was a personal seed investor in institutional cryptocurrency trading platform Tagomi, eventually resulting in a $12 million Series A in the firm and a 2020 exit to Coinbase. He also contributed to a $1 million seed investment in Uniswap, a token now trading at a $3 billion valuation.
Noyes first became interested in crypto as a teen, and attended MIT for one year (incomplete). Charlie’s high school research on blockchain technology has been nationally recognized by Intel and NSA.
7. Do Kwon 29 (South Korea)
Cofounder at Terraform Labs
Do Kwon cofounded Terraform Labs with the aim of developing a more efficient payment system through blockchain technology. Terra’s payment network is supported by a family of stablecoins (price-stable digital currencies pegged to the world’s major currencies). Terra has raised $32 million since its launch and its platform has over 50 million users.
Prior to Terraform Labs, Kwon founded and he is the former CEO of Anyfi, a wireless mesh network startup building one of the most sophisticated decentralized applications in real world use. During his time at Anyfi, Kwon co-invented several of the company’s key patents around decentralized networks and routing systems.
Kwon was previously a software engineer at Microsoft and Apple, and studied Computer Science at Stanford.
8. Dominik Schiener 24 (Italy/Germany)
Cofounder & Chairman of Board of Directors at IOTA
Dominik Schiener is a true example of a serial blockchain entrepreneur. The 24 year old entrepreneur with a passion to drive change in society and business had several stints in startups and crypto hustles before cofounding IOTA, an open-source distributed ledger focused on providing secure communications and payments between machines on the Internet of Things (IoT). FYI, according to Statista, the global market for IoT end-user solutions is expected to grow to around $1.6 trillion by 2025.
IOTA has already partnered with big global corporate names in the tech industry which will play a leading role in IoT such as Samsung Electronics, Volkswagen, Bosch and Cisco Systems.
9. Elisha Owusu Akyaw 19 (Ghana)
Founder & CEO at BlockXAfrica
The second youngest on the list, Elisha Owusu Akyaw has impressive success in the crypto space for someone his age. In 2017, at only 16 years old, the now 19 year old founded a cryptocurrency marketing firm, Token Media to help blockchain projects reach their target audience.
According to Bitcoinafrica.io, Token Media helped raise over $40 million in token sales through its marketing services. Today, he is a prominent cryptocurrency ambassador in West Africa and he is the founder of BlockXAfrica, a blockchain and cryptocurrency hub, and the cryptocurrency news site CoinNewsLive.com.
10. Flori Marquez 29 (USA)
Cofounder at BlockFi
Flori Marquez is the cofounder of cryptocurrency lending platform BlockFi.
Backed by big names such as Valar Ventures, Fidelity, Three Arrows Capital and Hashkey, BlockFi allows crypto holders to use cryptocurrency to earn interest at up to 8.6%.
The platform also offers crypto trading services and has raised over $100 million in equity from venture capital firms including Galaxy Digital, Susquehanna, and Winklevoss Capital. After generating $4.5 million revenue in 2019, BlockFi has 100,000 funded accounts and is on track to earn $120 million revenue this year and is preparing for an IPO.
11. Gourish Singla 26 (India)
Founder & Chief Strategy Officer at Shivom
With an ambitious aim, Gourish Singla cofounded Shivom, a blockchain-based medical startup that provides genetic data to pharma companies while ensuring the individual remains anonymous and is incentivised. It aims to be a preventive healthcare that predicts a disease or disorder before any known test can discover it.
Shivom raised $35 million through an ICO in May 2018. The startup was also included in the top 50 innovative companies across the world at the Smart Health Conference 2018, Dubai.
12. Grey Jabesi 26 (Malawi)
Cofounder at Alfajiri Ventures & Director of Business Development at The United Africa Blockchain Association
Grey Jabesi’s life is a great example of “grabbing the bull by the horns”. The blockchain enthusiast, cryptocurrency evangelist, analyst and investor has a network of some of the best minds in business and tech. He has worked with several startups before shifting his focus to the blockchain and cryptocurrency space because he saw the opportunities blockchain tech could bring to other entrepreneurs.
With a background in IT and visual communications, Today he is the business development director of The United Africa Blockchain Association, an organisation that promotes the adoption of blockchain tech and the delivery of blockchain projects geared to impact millions across Africa. He is also the cofounder of Alfajiri Ventures, a hub with a mission to “create a productive Africa” through training, re-skilling and building business networks and support communities in all industries especially in the technology space.
Apart from that and many other crypto related businesses he is involved in, Grey Jabasi runs his own podcast as the producer of The Grey Ave Podcast where he interviews prominent business personalities and influencers. He also has a YouTube channel, Hardcore Crypto, where he educates people about blockchain and cryptocurrencies daily.
13. Hunter Horsley 29 (USA)
CEO at Bitwise Asset Management
Hunter Horsley is the founder and CEO of Bitwise Asset Management, a crypto asset management firm which according to the firm, pioneered the first cryptocurrency index fund and is the leading provider of rules-based exposure to the cryptoasset space. His company, founded in 2017 now manages $100 million dollars in assets for its clients. The firm’s Bitwise 10 Crypto Index Fund tracks the 10 largest cryptoassets—including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin. The fund is currently available as a private placement; shares are expected to start publicly trading later this quarter.
Before Bitwise, Horsley was Product Manager on monetization at Facebook and Instagram.
14. Jack Mallers 26 (USA)
Founder at Zap Solutions
CEO of Zap, a bitcoin investment and payments company that transacts over the Lightning Network. Zap recently closed a $3.5M seed round led by Greenoaks Capital and employs about 20 people. It recently announced it’s working with Visa as the payments and credit card giant introduces clients to bitcoin. Mallers was inspired to create the Zap app back in 2017 as a way to help his family’s cannabis business in Boulder, Colorado. Every customer that uses Bitcoin gets 10 percent off their purchase. Since the cannabis industry in the United States cannot use the traditional financial system it made sense to focus on Bitcoin payments.
15. James Ferguson 27 (Australia), Robbie Ferguson 24 (Australia)
Cofounders at Immutable
Robbie and James Ferguson are cofounders of Immutable (Also known as Fuel Games), a company that they founded in 2018.
Immutable is a blockchain ledger based esports company that enable true ownership of in-game items – anyone can build tools or services around Immutable Assets and market them in an open, real-world economy. Etherbots was the first game they built (played entirely on the Ethereum blockchain network) while they pushed through several 120 hour weeks and still holding a fulltime job.
Immutable has raised over $15 million from investors. They generated over $5 million within a year.
16. Jason Fang 27 (Hong Kong)
Cofounder & Managing Partner at Sora Ventures
Sora Ventures is Asia’s leading investment capital firm dedicated to blockchain technology and digital asset, it has raised $30 million in assets since its launch in January 2018. It invests 80% of capital in blockchain and digital currency projects. So far, Sora Ventures has backed more than a dozen startups, including Mithril, Numerai, Origin Protocol and The Block.
Prior to Sora, Jason was the Head of Global Business Development at Juzix (now PlatON), a leading blockchain company that focused on distributed ledger technology and multi-party computation and he also worked as an Investment Associate at Fenbushi Capital, Asia’s first blockchain venture capital firm where he managed deal-flows and post management of companies in North America.
In addition to his active role in blockchain investments, Jason is the Director of Blockchain Institute in Chicago, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the adoption, development, and use of blockchain technology by providing free education to the public. Jason is also an active mentor at Alchemist Accelerator in Silicon Valley and Startupbootcamp in China.
17. Joey Krug 25 (USA)
Cofounder at Augur
The co-chief investment officer of Pantera Capital helps manage over $1.5 billion across three crypto-related funds and four cryptocurrency hedge funds. Before Pantera Krug organized the first ICO on Ethereum raising $5.7 million for Augur, a peer to peer betting platform with a total market value of $282 million.
18. Linda Xie 29 (USA)
Cofounder & Managing Director at Scalar Capital
Linda Xie is co-founder and Managing Director of Scalar Capital, a San Franscisco-based hedge fund firm that is investing in blockchain companies in exchange for tokens, with a focus on privacy technology.
She was formerly a product manager at Coinbase where she worked with regulators and law enforcement and prior to joining Coinbase, she was a portfolio risk analyst at AIG.
19. Mpho Dagada 26 (South Africa)
Commissioner for The Fourth Industrial Revolution at the Presidency, RSA & International Keynote Speaker
Also known as Mr. Bitcoin, Mpho Dagada is an inspiration to many. The trajectory of the young 26 year old commissioner and serial entrepreneur is nothing short of amazing. He had his first taste of cryptocurrency while he was still a student at the University of Johannesburg. 2 years after investing in Bitcoin and at the age of 21, he reached the Rand millionaire status.
Today, he is the owner of several businesses, an author of a best seller, an international keynote speaker who is often booked globally to educate several thousands of people about blockchain technology. He has worked alongside the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in their efforts in helping bank the 1.7 Billion unbanked people around the world.
As Member of the Presidential Commission, he has been entrusted by the President of South Africa to advise government on policies, develop framework for implementation of a multi-sectoral strategy, coordinate, monitor and evaluate multi-sectoral initiatives. He continues to become an authority in the Blockchain and Cryptocurrency space.
20. Nader Al-Naji 28 (USA)
CTO & Co-Founder at Intangible Labs
Nader Al-Naji had his sting in mining bitcoin in his Princeton dorm room before working as a software engineer at quant hedge fund D.E Shaw and google. A son of Syrian and Lebanese immigrants, he later cofounded Intangible Labs with Basis as its main product, a stable cryptocurrency designed to replace central banks.
His startup received $133 million from investors including Bain Capital and Andreessen Horowitz to develop Basis whose supply will be mathematically controlled in order to keep its price pegged to the U.S. dollar.
Unfortunately, the Basis project was forced to come to an end due to unavoidable regulatory concerns.
21. Olaoluwa Samuel-Biyi 29 (Nigeria)
Director at SureGroup & Partner at Hacked Capital
Olaoluwa Samuel-Biyi is SureGroup’s Co-Founder, a group of companies providing retail voucher solutions for gifting/loyalty (SureGifts), credit (SureCredit) and a non-cash remittance service that utilizes blockchain tech to facilitate global remittances (SureRemit).
In 2017, SureRemit; SureGroup’s cryptocurrency arm raised $7 million within two days, the most successful Initial Coin Offering (ICO) out of Africa yet. Today, SureRemit is active in over 140 countries and their merchant networks exceeds 1000 merchants and counting.
Samuel-Biyi started his career as a member of the founding team of Jumia in 2012 to work on business intelligence and commercial planning, before leaving to build SureGifts. Outside SureGroup, he is a partner at Hacked Capital, a doctoral candidate at IE Business School and a faculty member at Anglia Ruskin University.
22. Ong Jun Hao 28 (Singapore)
CEO at BlockConnectors.io & Account Manager at Torus Labs
A young entrepreneur and Business and Finance Graduate who reached his goal of having $1 million worth of investment by the age of 26, Ong Jun Hao is the founder and CEO of one of the leading blockchain advisory firm in Asia, BlockConnectors.io.
Jun Hao first came across the world of cryptocurrency in 2016 and saw it as an alternative asset for investment and started getting involved in it. In 2017, he launched BlockConnectors.io. Three years onward, with a client base of over 40 clients that are publicly listed, the company is ranked as one of the top blockchain advisory firms.
Prior to founding BlockConnectors, Jun Hao worked as an advisor for various firms. He is also listed amongst the top advisors on the ICO review platform, ICObench.com, he is partner of a global digital trading service provider, BiKi.com and account manager at Torus Labs, a distributed private key management solution.
23. Olaoluwa Osuntokun 26 (Nigeria/USA)
CTO & Cofounder at Lightning Labs
Nigerian born CTO, Osuntokun cofounded Lighting Labs in 2016. The company which has raised 10 million dollars early this year is building on the open source Lightning Network codebase, a platform similar to the Visa network, which sits on top of a collection of banks and allows for instant payments. But unlike Visa, the Lightning Network consists of 11,000 nodes that anyone can run, and relies on the underlying, decentralized bitcoin network for its liquidity, not the traditional financial system.
Osuntokun is a frequent contributor to the underlying Bitcoin protocol.
24. Sam Kazemian 27 (Iran/USA)
Cofounder at Everipedia
Sam Kazemian is the co-founder and president of Everipedia, the world’s first and largest blockchain-based encyclopedia with an incentive system that uses cryptocurrency technology to incentivize editors with tokens that have legitimate monetary value.
Starting as a a small project in his dorm room, Kazemian founded Everipedia with Theodore Forselius in December 2014. In June 2019, Kazemian co-founded Frax, a stablecoin cryptocurrency, with Trump senior advisor Stephen Moore. So far, Everipedia has raised over $30 million.
25. Sergei Khitrov 26 (Russia)
Founder at Listing.help
ITMO University graduate and serial entrepreneur Sergey Khitrov founded several tech companies. Among them is Listing.Help, a company that helps crypto projects get listed on cryptocurrency exchanges. The company has signed up over 500 clients having partnerships with over 100 crypto exchanges.
Sergey also organizes major international conferences on cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies, the biggest one being Blockchain Life, the one of the largest cryptocurrency events in the world.
26. Soravis Srinawakoon 27 (Thailand)
Cofounder & CEO at Band Protocol
Soravis Srinawakoon is the cofounder and CEO of Band Protocol, a permissionless blockchain protocol for decentralized data curation. It has built apps such as a BTC binary option dApp, BitSwing and crypto games that reward players with cryptocurrency, and has grown to over 500,000 users in just one year. The company has raised over $3 million in a seed round led by Sequoia, Dunamu & Partner and SeaX.
Srinawakoon has also founded a charity called Better Off that builds children’s libraries in rural areas of Thailand. He holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science and a master’s degree in management science and engineering from Stanford University.
27. Theodor Forselius 25 (Sweden)
Cofounder & CEO at Everipedia
Theodor “Tedde” Mauritz Forselius is a Swedish computer programmer and Internet entrepreneur from Sweden. He cofounded blockchain based “wikipedia” Everipedia along with Sam Kazemian (number 24 on the list).
Prior to Everipedia, Forselius founded a successful online gaming community. He moved to the US in 2014 to become an entrepreneur.
28. Victor Mapunga 23 (Zimbabwe)
Cofounder and CEO at FlexFinTX
Over 400 million Africans lack reliable identification and over 600 million of Africa’s population are unbanked. This represents a multibillion dollar opportunity for digital identification.
To solve this problem, Victor Mapunga along with cofounder Haardik Haardik founded FlexfinTx. FlexFinTx through their flagship product FlexID, aim to facilitate over 400 million digital identities across Africa, using nothing but a mobile phone and blockchain technology.
The company’s innovative platform allows Financial Institutions, Insurance Companies, Healthcare and most importantly Government departments to quickly plug into their blockchain-powered platform which allows regular users to access a wide array of services from bank account registrations, loans or even renewing driver’s license all without visiting a physical branch. Users simply register using a USSD code or WhatsApp for free. FlexIDs are Self-Sovereign meaning no organizations can just access a user’s information without gaining permission from the individual.
29. Vitalik Buterin 26 (Russia/Canada)
Founder at Ethereum
Vitalik Buterin is a Russian-Canadian writer and programmer. In November 2013, at the age of 19, Vitalik wrote and released the White Paper for Ethereum, A proposal of a global blockchain network designed to run smart contracts and decentralized applications. Today, Ethereum is the most popular blockchain platform among blockchain developers and its cryptocurrency ether is the world’s second most valued and recognized behind Bitcoin.
Vitalik is also a cofounder of Bitcoin Magazine. He was the recipient of the Thiel Fellowship, a program that gives $100 thousand to people under the age of 23 who want to build new things instead of sitting in the classroom. At the age of 20, he dropped out of the University of Waterloo to focus on his blockchain related research.
Today, his main focus is in researching scaling solutions for Ethereum and the upgrading of its protocol.
30. Yubo Ruan 24 (China/USA)
Founder & CEO at 8 Decimal Capital
Born in Beijing, China, Yubo Ruan is a driven entrepreneur and venture capitalist.
In 2017, armed with his vision to accelerate the mainstream adoption of blockchain technology and help prospective business entrepreneurs reach their full potential in the blockchain industry, Ruan founded 8 Decimal Capital, one of the leading blockchain investment firm in Silicon Valley and Beijing.
8 Decimal Capital currently manages 60 million dollars and has invested in over 40 companies globally.
Ruan is also the co-founder and venture partner of Skylight Investment which is an investment firm, backed by Taiyou Fund. He has co-Invested in several tech startups, including EasyTransfer, Hyperloop 1, Z-Glue and Thinnect.
Honourable Mention
14. Justin Sun 30 (China)
CEO & Founder at Tron
Justin is a serial entrepreneurs not short on controversies. Before Tron, he founded Peiwo, a Chinese Snapshat/Instagram-like app which has since been taken down from apps stores in China for not adhering to its regulations. In 2019, he caused a lot of commotion online after placing a record breaking $4.5 million bid to dine with Billionaire Warren Buffett.
While Justin may seem polarizing, his success is not by chance. He led Tron (founded in 2017) to become one of the largest blockchain networks in the world. Its cryptocurrency, Tronix, at the time of this writing, ranks as the 17th highest performing cryptocurrency in the world.
In June 2018, Tron acquired BitTorrent, the popular peer-to-peer network file sharing mammoth to run the BitTorrent token BTT and in October 2019, Tron announced a partnership it formed with Samsung.
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