Fortune releases Ledger 40 Under 40 list

Earlier this month, we reported that Fortune’s latest 40 Under 40 list featured a number of cryptocurrency industry figures. And now the magazine has deemed the burgeoning crypto-cum-FinTech world important enough to justify a spinoff: The Ledger 40 Under 40 list.

Brain Armstrong, CEO and co-founder of Coinbase, takes the number one spot. “Armstrong is building Coinbase, the biggest US Bitcoin exchange, into what his team hopes will become “the Google of crypto”, as relevant to the next wave of the web as Google was to the last,” Fortune notes.

“While it has a way to go, it’s on the right track. During this winter’s investment mania, Coinbase catapulted into the mainstream, eclipsing Charles Schwab in total accounts. Now the company is investing in upstarts and making acquisitions, including one that secured it a path to several tantalising financial licenses.”

Pushing boundaries

Lining up alongside Johnson are Vitalik Buterin, creator of Ethereum, the Collison brothers of Stripe (No. 4); Vlad Tenev and Baiju Bhatt (No. 5), dual CEOs and co-founders of Robinhood. The list also includes Jihan Wu of Bitmain (No. 3), Rana Yared of Goldman Sachs (No. 6), the Winklevoss twins of Gemini (No. 8), Rachel Mayer of Circle (No. 16).

“All of these pioneers are pushing boundaries at the bleeding edge of finance and technology. All of them warrant acclaim,” Fortune says, adding that, “we’re proud to note the honour roll features 15 women – about 38% of the total.”