Top 50 Crypto Professionals 2023
The Citywealth Top 50 Crypto Professionals celebrates the trailblazers in the cryptocurrency and digital assets industry. This Top List has been independently curated and thoroughly researched by Citywealth. Please note that any marketing of this content is not permitted at any time without a marketing license, as per our Terms & Conditions. This includes advertisement of inclusion in this list. To purchase a marketing license, please contact Marisa Barton.
Crypto remains big and small. It is a phenomenon all over the world and yet some markets like London are not really engaging. This is no surprise with media splashes about fraud and enforcement notices and a strong traditional finance sector but despite this, there is a hardened fan base amongst London professionals which is growing and forming a strong contingent. The sector isn’t just ‘crypto’; its trading, litigation, tax, asset recovery, custody, retail, gaming with tokens and NFT’s, banking, corporate formation, regulation, fund raising and crime.
The Citywealth Crypto Club and its regular Crypto Editorial Board, which formed in March 2022, seeks to raise awareness of the potential of the business opportunities and to bring the committed, professional crypto community together whilst also keeping its finger on the pulse of global developments. We are all of course aware of SBF and FTX and await the outcome of the fraud or negligence with interest.
A few of the who’s who…
FinTech ‘gets’ crypto and has easily morphed to lead the conversations. Lawyer Joshua Ashley Klayman Kuzar at Linklaters is one of the top spokespeople in New York; Gordon Ritchie, Supervising Associate at Simmons & Simmons, is working on NFT projects for global corporates; Steven Rees Davies, Partner, Carey Olsen, Bermuda is working on licensing, regulatory permissions and token redeeming and issuing. Sean Kiernan, CEO, Greengage, a digital merchant bank in London, is offering fiat banking services to crypto companies. Quintel Intelligence will secure and find missing assets and James Ramsden KC is leading the world in high profile crypto native against crypto native lawsuits.
Global footprint
Citywealth has discovered many things. Switzerland is a world class leader with Liechtenstein and Zug forming a nexus of power. Offshore, Cayman, Bermuda and the Isle of Man continue to lead the charge. Cayman with funds, Bermuda with pro-crypto legislation attracting companies to set up locally, and the Isle of Man with its gaming history. The USA may be taking an enforcement bashing but with Silicon Valley being where the tech titans live and New York where the money men/women live, the USA is not to be ignored. Adoption despite the deep winter is widespread in New York, where it isn’t on such a scale in London. And left of centre, Singapore has suddenly blasted the crypto world out of the water with its project guardian token trials. In theory, if anyone can do it, it should be the Asian community with a long history of tech platforms WeChat and Grab, in the region. Token2049, a conference for crypto in the region, is also well established.
Whatever the adoption future for crypto, the bitcoin halving is approaching (Jan 24), which is usually a time of great excitement and value swings to the positive. Custody and cyber security are growing with institutional players like Zodia Custody and Mastercard who have developed services like Ciphertrace which means the world of scamming will find it exponentially more difficult to initiate and profit from theft.
With crime under wraps, it remains to be seen what will happen next. Tokenization could be the next massive thing, or Defi, a new type of earning from staking. Whatever happens next, our list of the Citywealth Top 50 Crypto Professionals 2023 will be leading the charge and undoubtedly will sit atop the next wave of interest in crypto.
Citywealth is always interested in your opinion or news on crypto initiatives or transactions. Please send those to Karen Jones, Editor, Citywealth kjones@citywealthmag.com or Marisa Barton, mbarton@citywealthmag.com Leaders List and Top List Editor.