Most Influential 2021: Ray Youssef

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.

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