Wed, 14 Mar 2018
Blockchain as a space is filled with innovative individuals, passionate about helping the advancement of technology.
The Blockchain universe can be complex and that is why it is vital to find industry influencers who truly understand what they are talking about. Here is a list of six thought-leaders that we believe are invaluable to the blockchain space and community.
Elizabeth Stark is cofounder and CEO of Lightning, a company that is responsible for a decentralized, scalable and fast system of blockchain based financial transactions. She is also an advisor at Comma.ai, a startup building autonomous driving technology. Stark is a former professor at Stanford and Yale University, specialising in the future of the Internet. She has advised numerous decentralized technology and blockchain startups, and was an entrepreneur-in-residence at Stanford StartX. Stark anticipated, in an article published on Coin Telegraph, that the further decentralization of the blockchain system is inevitable.
Alex Tapscott is currently the CEO of Northwest Passage Ventures, an advisory firm building industry-leading blockchain businesses. The son of Don Tapscott, the duo were co-authors of the critically acclaimed non-fiction best-seller, “Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin is Changing Money, Business and the World.” In 2017, Alex and his father co-founded the Blockchain Research Institute, a multi-million-dollar think-tank that is investigating blockchain strategies, opportunities and use-cases. He is an active advisor and investor in a number of high-growth startups and blockchain protocols and his work has been featured in TIME, Fortune and Forbes.
Margaux Avedisian, also known as the Queen of Bitcoin, is a prominent Bitcoin entrepreneur, comedian, and public relations practitioner. She is involved in several high-level bitcoin projects and has appeared in documentaries and on numerous panels. Margaux has helped co-found three Bitcoin exchanges (MonetaGo, Tradehill, Alphapoint), and has further advised over dozens of other leading Blockchain platforms through her work as Vice President at Transform Group, a premiere Blockchain PR and Advisory organization.
Tamara McCleary is an international technology futurist, technology guru, and a marketing & digital strategy consultant. McCleary is also the founder and CEO of Thulium, a hugely successful financial and technology branding firm. She was named one of Onalytica’s top 50 Blockchain Influencers and also ranks Top 5 in AI, Robotics & IoT, Top 50 Big Data, as well as Top 15 Machine to Machine (M2M), Top 50 Blockchain, just to name a few!
Meltem Demirors, director of development at blockchain advisory firm Digital Currency Group (DCG), a firm focused on building and supporting bitcoin and blockchain companies by leveraging its insights, network and access to capital. Demirors manages a portfolio of 100 companies. She is also a blockchain and technology lecturer at the MIT Media Lab, and at the University of Oxford.
Patrick Byrne an American entrepreneur, e-commerce pioneer and the CEO of e-retailer giant Overstock.com. In 2015, Byrne used Medici’s t0.com securities trading platform to become the first person to purchase a digital bond entirely on the bitcoin blockchain. Byrne made history again in Dec 2016, when Overstock.com issued the first shares ever traded on an alternative trading system (ATS) utilizing distributed ledger technology.
Do you agree with our list? Who would you have liked to have seen included?
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