Most Influential 2021: Ray Youssef
Peer-to-peer bitcoin trading is a powerful force.

Few people expected the Nigerian crypto economy to explode after the country’s central bank and financial regulators banned crypto trading. But it has, and it’s now the eighth-largest crypto market in the world, according to Chainalysis. It continues to grow thanks primarily to peer-to-peer exchanges like Paxful that allow bitcoin to flow easily without touching the banking system. Ray Youssef, the founder and CEO of Paxful, has already taken the exchange global and has worked this year to integrate new features – like Bitcoin’s Lightning network.
The Complete List: CoinDesk’s Most Influential 2021.

More For You
Pudgy Penguins: A New Blueprint for Tokenized Culture

Pudgy Penguins is building a multi-vertical consumer IP platform — combining phygital products, games, NFTs and PENGU to monetize culture at scale.
What to know:
Pudgy Penguins is emerging as one of the strongest NFT-native brands of this cycle, shifting from speculative “digital luxury goods” into a multi-vertical consumer IP platform. Its strategy is to acquire users through mainstream channels first; toys, retail partnerships and viral media, then onboard them into Web3 through games, NFTs and the PENGU token.
The ecosystem now spans phygital products (> $13M retail sales and >1M units sold), games and experiences (Pudgy Party surpassed 500k downloads in two weeks), and a widely distributed token (airdropped to 6M+ wallets). While the market is currently pricing Pudgy at a premium relative to traditional IP peers, sustained success depends on execution across retail expansion, gaming adoption and deeper token utility.
More For You
Bitcoin's Quantum threat is ‘real but distant,’ says Wall Street analyst as doomsday debate rages on

Wall Street broker Benchmark argued the crypto network has ample time to evolve as quantum risks shift from theory to risk management.
What to know:
- Broker Benchmark said Bitcoin’s main vulnerability lies in exposed public keys, not the protocol itself.
- Coinbase’s new Quantum Advisory Council marks a shift from theoretical concern to institutional response.
- Bitcoin’s architecture is conservative but adaptable, according to Benchmark analyst Mark Palmer, with a long runway for upgrades.












