OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong Included in 'Most Influential' List This Year

Coin desks most influential, recognizes the people who for better or for worse, defined the year in digital assets and web three. You're watching Coindesk Daily, I'm your host, Jen Sani. There are 10 top honorees who made an outsized impact and 40 more people who were only a little less influential. Today. We'll take a look at five of the names from our top 10 list, which is not a ranking. Sam Altman is the CEO of Open A I an Artificial Intelligence company that was thrust into the spotlight this year after the rise in popularity of Chat G BT Microsoft's investment in Open A I has reportedly ballooned to a cumulative total of $13 billion. Altman also co founded the Cryptocurrency project World Coin which uses an orb to scan people's irises in exchange for a digital identity. Paulo Arduino is the newly promoted CEO of Tether who's looking to diversify the firm's investments after a banner year where the stablecoin giant is on track to profit $4.5 billion. Before that. Arduino was Chief Technology Officer of Tether and its sister company Crypto Exchange Binx. He's been at both, essentially since inception, starting out as a senior software developer, Brian Armstrong is the CEO of Coinbase Armstrong co-founded the US based crypto Exchange. Back in 2012, 9 years later, Coinbase went public via a direct listing on the NASDAQ. When reached by email, Armstrong detailed several accomplishments this year including the launch of base Coinbase popular layer two. However, Coinbase is also facing regulatory scrutiny with the SEC accusing it of operating an illegal securities exchange broker and clearing agency. Jose Fernandez de Pot is a senior vice president and general manager of Blockchain crypto and digital currencies at paypal. The payments giant debuted its own Ethereum based us dollar stable coin this year offering serious competition to existing market leaders like Tether's US, DT and circles us DC and Brad Garlinghouse is the CEO of Ripple. This year. Ripple scored a partial victory in its fight with the SEC after a judge ruled that the sale of Ripple's XRP tokens on exchanges and through algorithms did not constitute investment contracts. However, the institutional sale of the tokens did violate federal securities laws. Garlinghouse has previously said the firm spent $150 million on its defense. That's a wrap for this special edition of coin desk daily. Get more updates on coindesk.com and we'll see you next time.