{"id":34295,"date":"2021-01-02T09:00:04","date_gmt":"2021-01-02T07:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=34295"},"modified":"2025-08-28T19:44:20","modified_gmt":"2025-08-28T16:44:20","slug":"forklogs-person-of-the-year-seven-bitcoin-luminaries-one-antagonist-and-the-king-of-dislikes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/forklogs-person-of-the-year-seven-bitcoin-luminaries-one-antagonist-and-the-king-of-dislikes\/","title":{"rendered":"ForkLog’s Person of the Year: seven Bitcoin luminaries, one antagonist and the king of dislikes"},"content":{"rendered":"

A septet of standout Bitcoin industry figures whose actions in 2020 propelled the market higher, one antihero sowing chaos, and the king of dislikes who disappointed the community. Meet the winners (and one loser) of ForkLog’s inaugural ‘Person of the Year’ poll.<\/p>\n

During the vote, readers could not only cast votes for their favorites but also give dislikes, challenging a nominee’s right to win. In the ‘Antagonist of the Year’ category, the ‘for’ vote was cast for the figure who did the most harm to the industry and community.<\/p>\n

When tallying the points, we subtracted each candidate’s dislikes from their likes. A negative result indicates that the number of dislikes exceeded the number of likes.<\/p>\n

Bitcoin (Development) \u2013 Peter Velle<\/h2>\n
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\"\u0427\u0435\u043b\u043e\u0432\u0435\u043a<\/p>\n

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Peter Velle<\/strong><\/p>\n

Blockstream \/ Chaincode Labs<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Chaincode Labs employee and author of the Segregated Witness protocol Peter Velle received 214 points. He is currently working on Bitcoin updates Schnorr and Taproot, which have already been included in the Bitcoin Core source code. Activation is expected to be the most significant event in the protocol’s development since the block-size wars and the implementation of SegWit.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Breakthrough Technologies \u2013 Alexander Filatov<\/h2>\n
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\"\u0427\u0435\u043b\u043e\u0432\u0435\u043a<\/p>\n

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Alexander Filatov<\/strong><\/p>\n

Free TON \/ TON Labs<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Co-founder of TON Labs, Alexander Filatov, surged to the top of the rankings with 275 points. The launch of the Free TON mainnet based on the Telegram Open Network protocol became one of the most discussed \u2014 albeit controversial \u2014 events of the second quarter. Durov’s team was forced to abandon its own project following legal proceedings with the regulator in the United States.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Most Influential Leader of a Crypto Exchange \u2013 Changpeng Zhao<\/h2>\n
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\"\u0427\u0430\u043d\u043f\u044d\u043d<\/p>\n

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Changpeng Zhao<\/strong><\/p>\n

Binance<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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CEO Binance Changpeng Zhao amassed 434 points. Zhao not only runs the largest exchange by trading volume but also actively participates in discussions on digital assets, making him a top newsmaker for industry media.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Investor of the Year \u2013 Barry Silbert<\/h2>\n
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\"\u0427\u0435\u043b\u043e\u0432\u0435\u043a<\/p>\n

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Barry Silbert<\/strong><\/p>\n

Digital Currency Group \/ Grayscale Investments<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Barry Silbert, head of Grayscale Investments, received 160 points. Institutional investment in cryptocurrencies became a trend in 2020. Silbert’s Bitcoin Trust rode that wave, and by December assets under management were $13 billion.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Most Influential Figure in DeFi \u2013 Hayden Adams<\/h2>\n
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\"\u0427\u0435\u043b\u043e\u0432\u0435\u043a<\/p>\n

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Hayden Adams<\/strong><\/p>\n

Uniswap<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Readers awarded the victory to Uniswap founder Hayden Adams, giving him 160 points. This year Uniswap became the first DEX to surpass Coinbase by daily trading volume. The project led the DeFi Pulse ranking for a long time and also conducted a notably successful airdrop of its native UNI tokens.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Most Influential Analyst \u2013 Plan B<\/h2>\n
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\"\u0427\u0435\u043b\u043e\u0432\u0435\u043a<\/p>\n

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Plan B<\/strong><\/p>\n

author of the Stock-to-Flow model<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The Dutch institutional investor writing under the pseudonym Plan B received 238 points. The blogger created and promotes the Stock-to-Flow model for assessing scarcity or surplus of an asset.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Opinion Leader \u2013 Pavel Durov<\/h2>\n
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\"\u0427\u0435\u043b\u043e\u0432\u0435\u043a<\/p>\n

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Pavel Durov<\/strong><\/p>\n

Telegram<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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With an undisputed lead in public opinion, Pavel Durov was recognised by readers with 327 points. The unsuccessful launch of the Telegram Open Network blockchain platform, the unlocking of the Telegram messenger in Russia, and the entrepreneur’s outspoken remarks about Apple all helped keep him in the spotlight.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Antagonist of the Year \u2013 Graham Clark<\/h2>\n
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\"\u0427\u0435\u043b\u043e\u0432\u0435\u043a<\/p>\n

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Graham Clark<\/strong><\/p>\n

the 17-year-old hacker who compromised Twitter<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The title went to 17-year-old Graham Clark, who hacked Twitter. He scored 64 points. As a result, the hacker’s actions compromised 45 accounts of well-known figures and stolen Bitcoin worth approximately $120,000. He faces up to 200 years in prison in the United States.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

King of Dislikes \u2013 Arthur Hayes<\/h2>\n
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\"\u0427\u0435\u043b\u043e\u0432\u0435\u043a<\/p>\n

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Arthur Hayes<\/strong><\/p>\n

BitMEX<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Despite grants to Bitcoin developers, the reputation of the BitMEX derivatives exchange and its former CEO Arthur Hayes suffered substantially this year. The cause: criminal charges from the U.S. Department of Justice, a lawsuit from the CFTC, and a series of civil suits overseen by attorney Pavel Pogodin.<\/p>\n

Whether Hayes will resolve these issues remains to be seen in 2021; for now he sits at -89 points.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A septet of standout Bitcoin industry figures whose actions in 2020 propelled the market higher, one antihero sowing chaos, and the king of dislikes who disappointed the community. Meet the winners (and one loser) of ForkLog’s inaugural ‘Person of the Year’ poll.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34296,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"1","news_style_id":"2","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1144],"tags":[2076,1741,785],"class_list":["post-34295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-longreads","tag-bitcoin-2020","tag-forklog-news","tag-voting"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"21","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"2","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34295"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34297,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34295\/revisions\/34297"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}