The Many Faces of Crypto: Meet the people behind the world's 10 largest crypto exchanges amid FTX sentences
NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: FTX founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was found guilty on all seven counts of fraud, conspiracy and money laundering after more than two weeks of testimony, as per CBS News.
The ex-cryptocurrency billionaire was reprotedly convicted of two counts of wire fraud conspiracy, two counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, each of which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
Bankman-Fried was also convicted of conspiracy to commit commodities fraud and conspiracy to commit securities fraud, with a maximum sentence of five-year each.
In the wake of the crypto mogul's sentencing and the end of FTX era, here's a look at the people behind the10 largest crypto exchanges in the world, including Binance, Coinbase, Kraken, Bybit, OKX, KuCoin, Gate.io, Bitfinex, Bitstamp and Upbit.
Binance: Changpeng Zhao
Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world by trading voume as of August 2, 2023, according to the 24th trade volume, was founded by Changpeng Zhao, a Canadian businessman, investor, and software engineer.
Born in China's Jiangsu province, Zhao immigrated to Canada with his family at 12 years of age before settling down in Vancouver, British Columbia. He moved to Shanghai in 2005 to launch a career in business.
Zhao first came across the term Bitcoin in 2013 while playing poker with Bobby Lee, who later founded BTCC (company). Lee advised Zhao to put 10% of his money into bitcoin.
However, the latter reportedly sold his Shanghai apartment and invested all of his wealth in Bitcoin. Zhao went on to become a member of the team that developed Blockchain.info and also served as Chief Technology Officer of OKCoin.
He launched Binance in July 2017 and successfully raised $15 million in an initial coin offering before beginning trading after 11 days. Zhao ended up making Binance the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume in less than eight months of the launch.
The entrepreneur also launched Binance Coin and Binance Smart Chain in 2017 and 2019, respectively. He was named third on Forbes' list of "The Richest People In Cryptocurrency" in 2018 with an approximate net worth of $1.1-2 billion.
Zhao also launched Binance's US affiliate, Binance.US, in 2019. Earlier this year the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) filed a lawsuit against Binance and Zhao in the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois on allegations of willful evasion of US law and allegedly breaching derivatives rules.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) also said in June that it was suing Zhao and Binance on 13 charges for alleged violations of US securities rules.
OKX: Star Xu
OKX is a global cryptocurrency spot and derivatives exchange and reportedly the second biggest crypto exchange by trading volume which serves over 50 million people across the world. It was founded by Star Xu in 2017.
Xu, a Chinese entrepreneur as well as the founder of OKCoin, made OKX one of the largest digital asset exchanges in the world. He previously served as the CTO of DocIn.com and worked at Alibaba and Yahoo.
Xu currently serves as the CEO of OKX and the OK Group.
Coinbase: Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam
Considered to be the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the US by trading volume and also one of the largest in the world as per the 24th trade volume August 2023, Coinbase was founded by Brian Armstrong in 2012 before Fred Ehrsam joined in as a co-founder.
Armstrong, who is a business executive and investor, previously worked as a developer for IBM, consultant at Deloitte and software engineer for Airbnb. He currently serves as the CEO of Coinbase.
The billionaire founded Coinbase in 2012 after enrolling in the Y Combinator startup incubator program and receiving US $150,000 cash infusion. Former Goldman Sachs trader, Ehrsam, later joined the company as a co-founder after noticing Armstrong's posts on Reddit.
Armstrong was ranked number 10 on Fortune's 40 under 40 list at the age of 34 in 2017. He was also named to Time magazine's 100 Next list in 2019.
Forbes placed Armstrong on the first position in its Crypto Rich List, with an estimated net worth of $6.5 billion as of February 2021. He also made it to number 60 on the Forbes 400 list of the richest people in America.
Meanwhile, Armstrong's co-founder, Ehrsam, is also the co-founder and former managing partner of cryptocurrency investment firm Paradigm.
The business executive and investor was named in TIME Magazine's list of 30 People Under 30 Changing the World in 2013 as well as in Forbes' 30 under 30 list at the age of 25 in 2014.
In May 2020, Coinbase decided to shut down its headquarters in San Francisco, California and change operations to remote-first amid the Covid-19 pandemic. As of now, the company does not have any physical headquarters.
Bybit: Ben Zhou
Headquartered in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Bybit was also named in the 24th trade volume list of largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world on August 2, 2023. It was co-founded by Ben Zhou in March 2018 and registered in the British Virgin Islands.
According to the official website of the company, Zhou had a wealth of experience as a forex broker and became extremely invested with tokenomics and the world of crypto in 2016. After seeing the potential in the market as well as noticing the gaps, Zhou decided to follow his passion by combining DeFi with TradFi to build Bybit.
Prior to establishing Bybit, Zhou worked as the Chinese General Manager of XM, a forex and CFD broker, as per Golden. He currently serves as the CEO of Bybit, the website noted.
Kraken: Jesse Powell
US-based cryptocurrency exchange Kraken was founded by Jesse Powell in 2011. It was reportedly one of the first bitcoin exchanges to be listed on Bloomberg Terminal and was valued at US$10.8 billion in mid-2022, per New York Times.
According to Wikipedia, Powell is an alumnus of California State University, Sacramento, and previously worked as a consultant for Mt. Gox in resolving a security issue. Powell reportedly expected the fall of Mt Gox and began working on Kraken as a replacement before Mt Gox actually collapsed in 2014.
He launched Kraken in 2013 after receiving a $5 million Series A investment from Hummingbird Ventures and Bitcoin Opportunity Fund. The company became one of the first bitcoin exchanges to be listed on Bloomberg Terminal just a month after its launch.
Kraken released a mobile app for international users in 2021 and Powell became the chairman of Kraken's board of directors in 2022. That same year the company launched a beta version of its non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace.
As per Bloomberg, Kraken has been the subject of several regulatory investigations since 2018 and has allegedly agreed to cumulative fines of over $30 million.
KuCoin: Michael Gan and Eric Don
Headquartered in Seychelles, KuCoin was founded by Michael Gan and Eric Don alongside co-founders Top Lan, Kent Li, John Lee, Jack Zhu, and Linda Lin, per Golden.
The official website of the company dubbed Gan and Don, as "two tech geeks who were early blockchain adopters." Gan reportedly began coding at the age of 8 and founded his first startup at the age of 16.
He was quick to mine BTC after hearing about Bitcoin from his boss Don in 2012. However, after attempting to sell some BTC on Mt. Gox, Gan realized the world's largest platform at the time was difficult for beginners to use.
Gan along with Don was understoodf that blockchain was reshaping the financial system to not only serve the richest but everyone in the world. The duo reportedly wrote the first pieces of KuCoin's code in a cafe by the end of 2013.
They then began a People's Exchange that would allow every individual to get involved with crypto. KuCoin was also named in the 24th trade volume's August 2 list of largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world in 2023.
Bitfinex: Raphael Nicolle
Considered as one of the first professional platforms built for cryptocurrency trading, Bitfinex was founded in 2012 as a peer-to-peer Bitcoin exchange before adding support for other cryptocurrencies.
Raphael Nicolle, an IT technician from Paris, launched Bitfinex after a previous project called Bitcoinica, as per Forbes. He reportedly continued to work as a developer for the platform until the beginning of 2017, the publication noted.
According to Nicolle's LinkedIn bio, he got involved in the Bitcoin ecosystem by building the advanced trading platform, Bitfinex, which allowed people to do margin trading and lending in USD and Bitcoins.
"Starting as a one man company, Bitfinex gave me versatile skills in development (Ruby on Rails), system administration and network security," the bio stated.
Bitfinex partnered with Palo Alto company BitGo to offer highly-secured "wallets" in 2015 to allow people to store their digital currencies online.
However, the exchange was hacked, resulting in the loss of 1,500 Bitcoins or about $400,000 USD of their customers' assets.
Bitfinex launched its peer-to-peer trading platform in Venezuela, Argentina, and Colombia in June 2023 after announcing it would invest in the Chilean cryptocurrency exchange Orionx and expand its presence in Chile and Latin America.
Meanwhile, Nicolle mentioned in his LinkedIn bio he is "now looking for a new balance in my life and for new opportunities to progress."
Bitstamp: Nejc Kodric and Damijan Merlak
Known as the world’s longest-running cryptocurrency exchange, Bitstamp was co-founded by Nejc Kodric and Damijan Merlak in 2011.
The European cryptocurrency exchange reportedly allows trading between fiat currency, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, such as USD, EUR, GBP, Ethereum, Litecoin, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, Algorand, Stellar, and USD Coin.
Kodric, who is a well-known member of the bitcoin community, and Merlak founded the company in Slovania but later moved its registration to the UK in April 2013 and then to Luxembourg in 2016, per Wikipedia.
Gate.io: Dr Lin Han
Consistently ranked among the top 10 leading cryptocurrency exchanges, Gate.io was founded by Dr Lin Han in 2013. The full-service digital asset exchange platform covers millions of users around the world.
After regulators of China began imposing cryptocurrency restriction, starting from September 2017, Han's Gate.io moved its operation out of the country and successfully began serving the global market.
The platform also earned global recognition cryptocurrency exchange and virtual asset service provider. More recently, it partnered with Coinfirm, a platform for real-time anti-money laundering (AML) and combating the financing of terrorism (CFT) risk management for digital assets and cryptocurrencies.
Upbit: Dunamu
Upbit is a South Korean cryptocurrency exchange platform launched on October 24, 2017, with the help of their partnership with American cryptocurrency exchange Bittrex.
It is one of the top cryptocurrency spot exchanges as per CoinMarketCap. Upbit is operated by Dunamu, one of the highest-valued startups in South Korea.
Dunamu was founded by Chi-hyung Song, who went to serve as the CEO of the company before assuming the role of chairman.
Sirgoo Lee was then named as the CEO of Upbit's parent company, on December 21, 2017.