Top 10 Most Influential Cryptocurrency Investors of 2022

With each passing year, many people are coming to accept cryptocurrency, and with it comes more investments. Although there were a lot of crypto crashes in 2022, that didn’t stop the investments from rolling in. It didn’t halt the developments going on in the crypto scene, either.

While 2022 saw many people investing in the crypto scene, this article will highlight the most influential entities. These are important people who have put their time, money, and knowledge into making the crypto scene better.

10 Most Influential Crypto Investors of 2022

This list offers 10 of the most influential individuals who touched the crypto scene in 2022. Most of the individuals on this list are also long-time crypto investors.

Mykhailo Fedorov

Born in January 1991, this 32-year-old is the Minister of Digital Transformation and the Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine. This politician is also a savvy businessman who has launched several successful projects with his office. Some of these projects include DIIA, a portal for receiving public services, and electronic COVID certificates.

He also invested a lot of funds into the digitization of public services for a better anti-corruption procedure. In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Fedorov made it possible for Ukraine to raise $178 million through cryptocurrency. Of course, the funds were spent on guns and other ammunition for the war effort.

Mykhailo Fedorov – Pic by GLOBSEC

Elon Musk

The billionaire Elon Musk is the founder of Tesla and many other companies. Elon is someone who has always shown interest in innovative ideas since he is an inventor himself. As such, the usefulness of cryptocurrency didn’t escape him, as he once purchased $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin in 2021.

In 2022, he supported Dogecoin, the meme-based cryptocurrency, and considered accepting it as payment for Tesla cars. Of course, he later spoke against that but continued to support the coin. Nonetheless, in the latter half of 2022, Elon proposed a $44 billion bid to integrate the meme coin into Twitter.

Elon Musk – Pic by TREVOR COKLEY

Vitalik Buterin

The Russian-Canadian, Vitalik Buterin, is one of the co-founders of the popular cryptocurrency Ethereum. Since the launch of Bitcoin, Buterin has been interested in the cryptocurrency industry. This increasing interest caused him to start “Bitcoin Magazine” in 2011.

One of his biggest investments in 2022 is in the Ethereum blockchain upgrade. This upgrade moves Ethereum from using the proof-of-work algorithm to the proof-of-stake algorithm.

Apart from increasing blockchain transaction speed and reducing gas fees, this development reduces the power requirements of the blockchain. Throughout the year, he also made numerous investments in various cryptocurrency projects.

Vitalik Buterin – Pic by money.com

Barry Silbert

Barry Silbert is the founder of Digital Currency Group (DCG), a corporation that indirectly oversees $28 billion worth of cryptocurrency. Aside from being one of the largest Bitcoin investors, Barry’s company also invested in a slew of cryptocurrency startups. Barry is a strong supporter of decentralised finance and hopes to accelerate the development of a worldwide financial system.

Digital Currency Group made some aggressive expansions in 2022, despite cryptocurrency-related crashes that occurred that year. They invested in 50 more companies, bringing the total number of companies that they have invested in to over 200.

Barry Silber – Pic by David A. Grogan | CNBC

Changpeng Zhao

The Chinese-born Canadian Changpeng Zhao is the co-founder of Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange. Zhao has a long history in cryptocurrency, well before Binance was established in 2017. He started with Fusion Systems in Shanghai, which allows for high-frequency trading on a very fast automated system.

After developing Binance, Zhao later launched the Binance Smartchain in 2019, which comes with smart contract functionality. In 2022, in the aftermath of the FTX crypto exchange collapse, he proposed an investment. This was to create a $1 billion recovery fund for all those affected by the FTX collapse.

Changpeng Zhao – Pic by CoinGape

Eric Calderon

Eric Calderon is not a new name for anime fans, as this animation expert has been in the business since 2009. He is known for many iconic series like Aeon Flux, Cartoon Sushi, Titans Return, and Transformers: Combiner Wars. He also wrote several video scripts, animated TV series, graphic novels, feature films, and music videos.

These days, Eric’s interest has also shifted to the blockchain, as he is actively investing in the metaverse. Art Blocks, his new company, has released blockchain-based generative art. This investment was successful, as collector sales accounted for up to $172 million of Art Block’s sales in 2022.

Eric Calderon

Avery Akkineni

The cryptocurrency space is a male-dominated environment, as investor Avery Akkineni will show you. Akkineni is the president of the Web3 arm of VaynerMedia, Vayner3. Although the collapse of FTX made many people shy away from investing in the crypto market, this hasn’t deterred her.

Akkineni has been onboarding numerous mainstream corporations into the Non-Fungible Token (NFT) and cryptocurrency space. She is the most unlikely ambassador of Web3 adoption due to her history of digital marketing. However, she hasn’t sat still in 2022 and has gone around to talk companies like Crocs and KFC into investing in Web3.

Avery Akkineni – Pic by Boardroom

Gary Vaynerchuk

Vaynerchuk became popular as a Soviet-born wine critic who was invested in his family’s wine business. However, he later went into digital marketing with his brother, AJ Vaynerchuk, and later created VaynerMedia. From VaynerMedia, he ventured into the cryptocurrency space and became interested in NFTs.

He was present at many NFT events in 2021 and owned a sizable collection of art that was sold. Vaynerchuk later created VeeFriends, an NFT project that had a floor price of $1,206 for their NFTs. These NFTs are proposed to have a market cap of $74 million.

Gary Vaynerchuk – Pic by garyvaynerchuk.com

Michael Saylor

Michael Saylor is an American entrepreneur and the former CEO of MicroStrategy. MicroStrategy began as a software company for data mining, however, they later switched to creating software for business intelligence.

In 2022, Saylor announced his intention for MicroStrategy to purchase gold, cryptocurrency, and other investments. This led the company to start with an initial purchase worth $250 million, which allowed them to purchase 21,454 bitcoins. They didn’t stop there, as they purchased 8,813 bitcoins by 2022 at an average price of $32,670.

Michael Saylor – Pic by Rebecca Blackwell

Michael Novogratz

Michael Novogratz is a longtime advocate of cryptocurrency. This investment banker is the CEO of Galaxy Investment Partners, a company that’s involved in investing in cryptocurrencies.

Michael has made great gains and great losses in the cryptocurrency scene, but that doesn’t stop him from defending it. Approximately $426 million in digital assets were available in Galaxy Investment Partners’ third quarter report.

Michael Novogratz

Conclusion

2022 brought many good and bad developments to the crypto scene. Many investors were scared away, and many others increased their investments. This article offers the identities of 10 of these influential investors who sought to grow the crypto scene against all odds.