A mix of highly influential and controversial characters make up the latest list of the 10 most popular crypto entrepreneurs based on their social media presence, with Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao leading the pack in first place and convicted fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried trailing in 10th.
The top 10 list was compiled by CoinLedger after shortlisting CryptoWeekly’s 30 most influential people in cryptocurrency in 2023, combined with their respective social media followings to determine the most widely followed crypto personality worldwide.
Sitting at the cool kids’ table with CZ are Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and Twitter co-founder and Block CEO Jack Dorsey, occupying the top three spots, in that order. In CoinLedger’s study, CZ emerged as the most popular personality in cryptocurrency, with nearly 9.1 million followers on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram combined.
Buterin and Dorsey followed CZ with combined Twitter and Instagram followers of 7.7 million and 6.4 million, respectively.
MicroStrategy co-founder Michael Saylor and ARK Invest founder and CEO Cathie Wood sit in fourth and fifth place, respectively. Saylor has around half of Dorsey’s following at nearly 3.25 million, while Wood has just over 1.6 million followers.
Venture capitalists Chamath Palihapitiya and Marc Andreessen reached the sixth and seventh places, with 1.6 million and 1.3 million followers, respectively. Digital Currency Group CEO Barry Silbert and Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong nabbed the next two spots with 1.25 million and 1.2 million followers.
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The 10th spot on the list was bagged by Sam “SBF” Bankman-Fried, the founder and former CEO of the defunct crypto exchange FTX. SBF still has a following of 1.06 million across X and Instagram, a year after the FTX collapse.
During the FTX implosion, SBF’s overall followers increased from roughly 780,000 to over 1.1 million and have settled at the one million mark ever since, according to Socialblade data.
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