Amber Baldet: She is the executive director of JP Morgan’s Blockchain Center of Excellence, and is incredibly influential in the crypto world. She boasts that her secret super power is connecting enterprise players with hackers, cryptocurrency innovators and rogue developers, who are roaming the open sources outlands of experimental technology. As well as this, she is the driving force behind, Quorum, a blockchain platform, which is used by international corporations and banks, in order to explore the same technical factors that make crypto so interesting. Vitalik Buterin He is the creator of the huge virtual currency, Ethereum, and is arguably one of the most famous developers. In 2017, he was absolutely swamped with offers to join ICOs, although he is quick to ensure that he is far more interested in strengthening the infrastructure as opposed to joining startups. Despite being a prime target for trolls, he is very much a leading figure at the Ethereum Foundation, as well as ZCash and Omise Go. He is also constantly working on improvements for the Ethereum ecosystem, saying; “2017 really has been the year where hype in crypto, including financial hype and social hype in general has far exceeded the reality of what existing blockchain systems can offer…Everyone in the Ethereum space recognises that the world is watching, and we are ready to deliver. Joyce Kim Finally, we look at the co-founder of Stellar, Joyce Kim. As well as this, she is also the managing partner of the $100million SparkChain Capital fund. She has previously described herself as ‘permanently remote’, because she is constantly flying anywhere where she can see opportunities that have not yet been tapped into. Lumens, Stellar’s cryptocurrency have been growing at a remarkable rate, increasing by 181 percent in January alone. It has been compared to Ripple, because their ecosystems have similar origins, and were both made for faster and cheaper transactions. She stepped down from her role as Stellar’s executive director in 2016, so she could focus on venture capital, but is arguably one of the most experienced protocol creators. In 2018, she has spoken about her desire to deepen her involvement with different virtual currencies, saying; “2018 should be the year of execution. Either we are going to build things that people use, that have traction, or we are going to see this technology not reach its full potential…I’m talking with entrepreneurs all over the world and building blockchain projects in different geographies.” Image Source: PublicDomainPictures Sponsored by