Most Influential 2021: Serey Chea
Project Bakong stands apart from other nation digital currency experiments. Chea brought Cambodia’s moonshot into being.

Serey Chea is deputy director general at the National Bank of Cambodia, which is taking a unique approach to a central bank digital currency (CBDC), with its Project Bakong. Chea is adamant that the nation’s digital currency, built on the Hyperledger distributed ledger, isn’t a CBDC, but is working to bring basic financial services to Cambodia, where nearly 80% of the population is unbanked.
The Complete List: CoinDesk’s Most Influential 2021
Read more: Meet the Woman Behind Cambodia’s Moonshot Blockchain Project - Leah Callon-Butler

More For You
Protocol Research: GoPlus Security

What to know:
- As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
- GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
- Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.
More For You
Hong Kong proposes new rules to tap insurance capital into cryptocurrencies

Public consultation on the proposal will occur from February to April 2025, with legislative submissions expected later that year.
What to know:
- Hong Kong is considering new rules to allow insurers to invest in digital assets, potentially boosting institutional crypto adoption in Asia.
- The proposal mandates a 100% risk charge on direct crypto holdings, requiring insurers to reserve a dollar for every dollar invested.
- Public consultation on the proposal will occur from February to April 2025, with legislative submissions expected later that year.












