Cheyenne Ligon

Cheyenne is a features and opinions editor at CoinDesk. Previously, she covered U.S. policy and regulation, with a focus on court proceedings and crime. She was part of the Gerald Loeb award-winning team that chronicled the downfall of FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried. She has no significant crypto holdings.

Cheyenne Ligon

Latest from Cheyenne Ligon


Finance

Most Influential: The Social Media Traders

Crypto Twitter’s social media traders turned their X dashboards into public PnL reality shows in 2025, sending billions in volume through memecoins and perp DEXs in real time.

screen with chart

Finance

Most Influential: Sirgoo Lee

Lee shaped the exchange that defines Korea’s crypto market, but even after his exit this year, the country’s hyperactive retail engine will keep moving.

Upbit Sirgoo Lee

Finance

Most Influential: Shayne Coplan

Once mired in legal trouble that included federal probes and law enforcement raids, Polymarket founder and CEO Shayne Coplan has emerged victorious this year, casting off the yoke of regulatory scrutiny and growing the prediction market he founded into a $9 billion betting empire.

Shayne Coplan Polymarket

Finance

Sky's Keel Starts $500M Investment Campaign to Boost RWAs on Solana

The Tokenization Regatta aims to allocate funds and support to projects bringing tokenized real-world assets to the Solana network.

Stylized solana graphic

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Finance

Stripe Acqui-Hires Crypto Payments Startup Valora, Venturing Further Into Stablecoins

The team behind the Celo-based app is joining Stripe, while the intellectual property is returned to cLabs.

Stripe co-founder Patrick and John Collison (Stripe)

Tech

Most Influential: Rushi Manche

The Movement Labs’ co-founder’s secret dealings and subsequent scandal stoked industry-wide anxieties about opaque token allocations and insider trading.

Rush Manche

Policy

Most Influential: The Lazarus Group

The crypto industry’s most notorious hackers continue to break records, highlighting the importance of taking every step possible to secure wallets.

The Lazarus Group

CoinDesk News

Most Influential: Pump.fun

The platform saw massive success in 2025, with over $150 billion in cumulative volume, $138 million in monthly revenue, and a notable $500 million token sale in July.

Pump.fun

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Finance

Most Influential: Hayden Davis

Crypto’s Gen Z supervillain may have single-handedly popped the memecoin bubble this year, exposing it as less a cultural movement and more a parasitic financial machine feeding on new entrants.

Hayden Davis

CoinDesk News

Most Influential: The Wrench Attackers

Perpetrators use various tactics, including posing as delivery drivers or waiting at gyms, homes, or hotel rooms, to target victims and demand access to their wallets.

Wrenches