Ten People Redefining the Power Boundaries of Crypto in 2025

Source: TechFlow (Shenchao)

If one word must define the crypto industry in 2025, it is neither “bull market” nor “compliance,” but Institutionalization.

For the first time, crypto no longer stood in opposition to the global financial system. Instead, it was formally absorbed into its institutions, capital flows, and power structures.

Wall Street capital, sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, and other pillars of traditional finance began entering the market in a systematic way. Public companies led by Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) put Bitcoin on their balance sheets, and with ETFs channeling scaled inflows, Bitcoin broke its prior peak in 2025 and reached USD 126,000.

At the same time, USDT’s market cap surpassed USD 183.4 billion, and Tether became a key component of a global “USD-alternative payment system.” Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal expanded on-chain payment capabilities across the board. USDC was widely used for e-commerce settlement, overseas remittances, and cross-border payments for SMEs—marking the first time stablecoins truly penetrated the real economy.

The passage of the GENIUS Act, shifts at the center of U.S. regulatory power, and systematic ETF inflows collectively formed a deep structural transition:

Crypto has moved from the frontier era into the institutional era.

None of these developments happened without leadership. It was industry leaders who helped pull crypto into a new era—more institutionalized, globalized, and integrated.

As the year closes, we reviewed 2025 and identified ten key figures, to revisit how they shaped the industry’s direction and power map.

1. Donald Trump: Monetizing Political Capital Through Crypto

On January 20, 2025, Donald Trump was sworn in as the 47th President of the United States, signaling a fundamental shift in Washington’s stance toward crypto.

During the campaign, Trump promised to make the U.S. the “crypto capital.” The statement won broad support from crypto companies and capital. More striking, however, was how he converted political influence directly into economic gains.

Three days before taking office, Trump launched a token called “Trump” on Solana. With the implicit endorsement of a president and the positioning of an “official meme coin,” the token quickly attracted speculative capital and surged to around USD 75. According to a Financial Times analysis published in March 2025, the project generated USD 350 million in net proceeds from token sales and fees, briefly pushing Trump’s on-paper net worth to USD 20 billion.

The Trump administration’s policy architecture also reflected an institutional mindset. On January 23, he signed Executive Order 14178, establishing a “Presidential Working Group on Digital Asset Markets,” explicitly prohibiting the federal government from creating, issuing, or advancing a central bank digital currency (CBDC), while committing to the development of USD-pegged stablecoins.

A March 6 executive order carried greater strategic weight: it created a U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and Digital Asset Stockpile, designating confiscated Bitcoin held by the DOJ and Treasury as “strategic reserve assets.” In effect, it granted Bitcoin a formal place within the national financial framework.

On July 18, the signing of the GENIUS Act became a milestone for institutionalization. For the first time, a federal law delivered a systematic regulatory response to stablecoins, providing a legal framework for integrating crypto assets with the mainstream financial system.

Still, Trump’s tariff policy became a major volatility variable. After the “Liberation Day tariffs” in April, markets panicked and Bitcoin briefly fell toward USD 85,000. Traders joked about policy-driven volatility as the “TACO trade” (Trump-driven Cryptocurrency Operations).

Beyond the personal token project, the Trump family also profited through World Liberty Financial, a family-backed venture that operates the governance token WLFI and the USD stablecoin USD1. According to the Financial Times, WLFI token sales generated USD 550 million, while the USD1 stablecoin business generated USD 2.71 billion—and the Trump family holds 38% of the company.

In short, the “Trump phenomenon” highlights a new reality: political authority is becoming a key anchor for crypto value, and the original ideals of decentralization are bending toward a more ordered, institutional reality.

2. Michael Saylor: Pioneer of the Digital Asset Treasury Revolution

If Trump represents the crypto monetization of political capital, Michael Saylor, founder of Strategy, symbolizes a paradigm shift in corporate treasury management.

In August 2020, Strategy announced it would purchase about 21,454 BTC with roughly USD 250 million in cash, explicitly proposing Bitcoin as a corporate treasury substitute for cash. The move was more than an investment decision—it redefined how corporations think about storing value.

Saylor built a coherent narrative and framework for corporate Bitcoin reserves. He argued that companies were not speculating on a new technology, but making a considered, long-term allocation to protect shareholder value. This repositioned Bitcoin from a “speculative instrument” to “financial infrastructure.”

In 2025, corporate Bitcoin buying accelerated dramatically, and Strategy continued to expand its holdings. To date, it holds 671,268 BTC. Its most recent purchase took place on December 15, spending roughly USD 980 million to buy 10,645 BTC.

As Bitcoin surged, Strategy’s share price peaked around USD 414 during the year. More importantly, a wave of public companies followed the playbook, further supporting Bitcoin’s rise. According to BitcoinTreasuries data, 192 public companies now hold about 1,087,857 BTC, roughly 5.45% of circulating supply.

ARK Invest went further in a research report, calling Strategy a pioneer of the DAT model (Digital Asset Treasury), and labeling followers as “DAT companies.” The concept signaled that Bitcoin is shifting from an “alternative investment” toward a foundational asset within corporate finance.

That said, the Strategy model is also being tested. As markets weakened, Strategy’s stock fell toward USD 200, and its market net asset value multiple (mNAV) approached the critical threshold of 1. If mNAV drops below 1, Strategy’s “BTC appreciation flywheel” would face significant challenges.

Even so, Saylor continues to commit to the long-term approach. On November 17, he said in an interview that Strategy would not sell its holdings unless Bitcoin fell below USD 10,000.

3. Tom Lee: A Bridge Between Wall Street and Crypto

In the historic migration of traditional capital into crypto, Tom Lee, founder of Fundstrat Global Advisors, played a crucial bridging role. As one of Wall Street’s earliest and most influential Bitcoin bulls, his views helped shape institutional perception of crypto assets.

In 2017, when mainstream finance was highly hostile to Bitcoin, Lee told CNBC that Bitcoin could surpass USD 25,000, a call that made him one of Wall Street’s best-known crypto bulls. More importantly, in 2018 he introduced the Bitcoin Misery Index (BMI), alongside cost models and network-effect models—serious valuation frameworks that remain widely cited today.

In 2020, as Strategy and Tesla began adding Bitcoin, Lee repeatedly stated that corporate treasuries adopting Bitcoin was an irreversible trend—an outlook that was validated in the 2021 bull market.

In 2025, Lee broadened his focus to Ethereum. In interviews, he argued that Ethereum was entering an early-stage “supercycle,” similar to Bitcoin post-2017. As sentiment improved, Ethereum broke its all-time high in August, nearing USD 5,000.

Lee is not just a commentator but also a practitioner. BitMine, an Ethereum treasury company where he serves as board chair, continued accumulating ETH. As of December 21, 2025, it disclosed holdings of 4,066,062 ETH, about 3.37%of total supply.

Despite ETH recently falling below USD 3,000 and BitMine’s stock trading around USD 32, Lee maintained his year-end target of USD 10,000.

Lee’s impact lies in importing Wall Street’s analytical frameworks into crypto, while translating crypto’s innovation narrative back to traditional institutions—making him a critical catalyst in the convergence of two worlds.

4. Changpeng Zhao (CZ): The Unwilling Silence of Power

For CZ (Changpeng Zhao), 2025 marked a key year of reemergence from legal shadow—and a renewed grip on industry influence.

A presidential pardon from Trump restored CZ’s freedom, and showcased high-level political leverage. But what matters more is how he reasserted dominance in just months.

Those who once stood at crypto’s power peak rarely abandon power completely. CZ’s return carried the calculation and impatience of a ruler. Binance’s Alpha 2.0 platform, launched in March 2025, was framed as an early Web3 project discovery launcher—but in practice, it resembled a carefully designed commercial reordering. It enabled a decisive overtake of OKX Wallet’s momentum, pulled on-chain issuance into Binance’s orbit, and reshuffled the broader landscape.

Reviving BSC, challenging Solana’s standing, and applying “dimensionality reduction” pressure on second-tier exchanges’ listing narratives—it had teeth.

Even more notable was CZ’s precision in shaping market sentiment. When the “Binance Life” meme coin surpassed a USD 500 million market cap in four days and surged 6,000x in 96 hours, CZ’s seemingly casual “#BNB meme szn” tag on X ignited a BNB Chain meme frenzy.

In 2025, CZ interacted more frequently with KOLs, and his posts spawned multiple meme coins. Though he later claimed it was “pure coincidence,” a single post reallocating hundreds of millions in market wealth is, in itself, a display of power.

CZ’s public moves continued to carry the imprint of power intent. His November investment of 2 million tokens in the Aster project looked like a bet on decentralized perpetuals—but also signaled to the market that even after regulatory pressure, he retained the ability to influence the industry’s direction. He no longer needed to directly control markets through Binance; instead, he maintained influence through investment positioning, social media gravity, and ecosystem engineering—more subtle, and often more effective.

The shift from direct rule to indirect control arguably made his power harder to challenge. CZ demonstrated a core truth: real power does not rely on titles, but on the ability to shape rules and expectations.

5. Vitalik Buterin: Balancing Decentralization Ideals and Institutional Reality

On July 30, 2025, Ethereum marked its 10-year anniversary, and Vitalik Buterin continued navigating a delicate balance between decentralization ideals and institutional momentum.

Ethereum saw dramatic price swings in 2025. In April, ETH fell toward USD 1,793, and sentiment turned deeply bearish. But as Circle went public and narratives around stablecoins and RWAs strengthened, Ethereum regained attention as core infrastructure.

On June 2, Consensys founder Joseph Lubin launched an “ETH reserve” strategy via U.S.-listed SharpLink Gaming (SBET). Companies including BitMine, Bit Digital, and GameSquare followed, pushing ETH higher. ETH gained 40%in July alone, broke its all-time high in August, and reached USD 4,946.05.

On the symbolic date of July 30, Vitalik published “Ethereum 2035: Vitalik’s Vision for the Next Decade.” The piece outlined Ethereum’s direction across scalability, privacy, governance evolution, and the importance of preserving Ethereum’s experimental culture—framing a path from supporting crypto applications to becoming global critical infrastructure.

On October 20, Vitalik announced the GKR protocol (Goldreich–Kahan–Rothblum), a Proof-of-Stake / ZK computation framework designed for high-speed proof generation, applicable to blockchain and large-scale AI computation. It was presented as a next-generation “super proving system” and foundational support for Ethereum’s lightweight strategy.

Yet Vitalik remained cautious about institutionalization. While corporate ETH treasuries and institutional holdings drove price appreciation, he warned of two risks: (1) institutions could push away users and core developers who truly care about decentralization, hollowing out the community; and (2) institutional pressure could drive poor technical decisions that deviate from Ethereum’s roadmap.

At Devconnect, Vitalik also issued a major warning that quantum computing could break elliptic-curve cryptography before the 2028 U.S. presidential election, urging Ethereum to upgrade to quantum-resistant algorithms within four years.

For emerging applications like prediction markets, he recommended distributed oracle designs to reduce manipulation risk.

Vitalik’s stance reflects a deep dialogue between crypto-native thinking and institutional reality: Ethereum must be strong enough to support global financial infrastructure, while preserving decentralization and experimentation as its core identity.

6. Kim Jong-un: Taxing the Entire Crypto Industry

Beneath the glossy surface of crypto institutionalization in 2025, an invisible force from the Korean Peninsula reshaped the global digital asset risk landscape.

Multiple hacking groups tied to North Korea’s Reconnaissance General Bureau (RGB)—including Lazarus Group, APT38, and Kimsuky—shifted from political espionage toward systematic, profit-driven attacks.

In 2025, North Korean hackers displayed striking capabilities.

In February, they attacked the crypto exchange Bybit, stealing around USD 1.5 billion in crypto assets. In November, South Korea’s largest exchange Upbit suffered a breach, with USD 30 million stolen.

North Korean operatives also began applying for jobs at crypto companies at scale using fabricated identities. Investigations suggested that 30%–40% of applications some crypto firms received were suspected to be infiltration attempts.

According to year-end tracking reports from Chainalysis and TRM Labs, North Korean-linked actors stole approximately USD 2.02 billion in crypto assets in 2025.

A UN expert panel assessed that roughly 60% of these assets were used to evade international sanctions and fund nuclear programs, 30% to maintain regime stability, and 10% to upgrade cyberattack infrastructure.

For years, the international community tried to cut off North Korea’s foreign-currency access through financial sanctions. Crypto changed the underlying rules of this game.

In a sense, this is an extreme form of “state-level crypto finance”: it does not rely on taxation or market fundraising, but extracts value directly from an open global financial system.

It underscores a brutal truth for the industry:

Once crypto becomes global infrastructure, it inevitably becomes an extension of state competition.

7. Elon Musk: A Symbol of the Trend Toward Concentrated Power

In crypto’s institutional era, Musk’s influence reflects a key trend: the enormous market impact of individual authority.

On August 14, 2025, media reports said SpaceX’s BTC holdings had surpassed USD 1 billion in value. By contrast, Tesla sold 75% of its Bitcoin holdings at an unfavorable time, missing massive upside.

Musk’s impact extends beyond Bitcoin. As a long-time Dogecoin supporter, even without aggressive promotion in 2025, his social media activity still triggered notable market reactions. A simple repost related to the “green octopus” concept drove violent rallies in Solana meme coins.

In the first half of 2025, Musk entered politics, leading a government efficiency department. After a fierce clash with Trump over the “Big Beautiful Bill,” he even announced the formation of the America Party—before ultimately reconciling and returning focus to his businesses.

The year’s most watched event was Tesla shareholders approving Musk’s compensation plan—worth up to USD 1 trillion—by more than 75%. If fully realized, Musk would become the world’s first “trillionaire.”

The deeper meaning is that Tesla’s valuation, strategy, brand, and technology cadence became fully bound to one person’s will. In crypto, many protocols similarly rely on a “core founder + token narrative” structure.

The world is entering a “strongman era,” where personal authority becomes a key driver of value creation and volatility—creating an intriguing tension with crypto’s original decentralization ideals.

8. Justin Sun: Learn the Rules, Use the Rules

In March 2025, Justin Sun appeared on the English edition cover of Forbes, described as the “crypto billionaire who helped the Trump family realize USD 400 million in gains.”

His moves this year were equally notable: in April he provided USD 456 million in support for TUSD to prevent depegging; in the same month, Canary filed an application for a staked TRX ETF; in June he took TRON public through a reverse merger via an investment bank linked to the Trump family; in July he spent USD 28 million to become the youngest Chinese entrepreneur to go to space as a commercial astronaut.

But the most striking shift in 2025 was the transformation of public perception around Justin Sun. On platforms such as Zhihu and Xiaohongshu, his past courses and statements were rediscovered—such as encouraging people in 2016 to buy Tesla and Bitcoin, and advocating against marriage and homeownership before 30 in order to focus on asset accumulation.

Ideas once criticized as “attention-seeking” were reinterpreted under today’s market environment. One Zhihu commenter wrote that Sun embodies an “ocean-civilization mindset”: embracing the unknown, rejecting the shelter of islands and walls, seeking balance amid storms, revaluing everything, refusing moral camps, and remaining “chaotic neutral”—a “superman” loyal only to his own will to power.

This narrative reversal also reflects a broader sense of disillusionment among younger generations: following traditional social rules step-by-step does not necessarily lead to satisfying outcomes, and many feel trapped by an invisible collapse of certainty.

Sun remains the same figure: someone who understands rules and exploits them—“bug-fixing,” as the slang goes—consistently timing moves to the rhythm of the era.

9. Brian Armstrong: The Spokesman for Compliant Infrastructure

Coinbase founder and CEO Brian Armstrong in 2025 exemplified how crypto companies reposition themselves during institutionalization.

Early in the year, Armstrong publicly supported the creation of a U.S. national Strategic Bitcoin Reserve via Coinbase’s official blog. On January 21, at Davos, he said that if U.S. leadership embraces crypto, it would attract major investment inflows. On January 25, he predicted that Bitcoin could surpass gold’s USD 18 trillion market cap before 2030.

On March 20, Coinbase’s validator report disclosed the company runs roughly 120,000 validator nodes, staking 3.84 million ETH, about 11.42% of all staked ETH—making Coinbase the largest single node operator on Ethereum. This positioned Coinbase as critical infrastructure for the Ethereum network.

On May 8, Coinbase announced plans to acquire Dubai-based crypto derivatives exchange Deribit for USD 2.9 billion, including USD 700 million in cash and 11 million shares of Coinbase Class A stock, aiming to build the “most comprehensive global crypto derivatives platform.”

A data-breach crisis that month showcased Armstrong’s incident response. When hackers collected personal data of around 70,000 users and demanded USD 20 million in BTC as ransom, Armstrong refused to pay. Instead, he offered USD 20 million as a bounty to identify the perpetrators and pledged to compensate affected users. The move was estimated to cost USD 180–400 million, but reinforced Coinbase’s reputation and principles.

Mid-year, Coinbase hosted the State of Crypto Summit 2025, where Armstrong announced a suite of enterprise products including Coinbase Business, Coinbase Payments, and DEX Trading on Coinbase. He emphasized stablecoins—especially USDC—as solving “real pain points” in enterprise payments: lowering settlement costs, accelerating cross-border transfers, and improving financial access.

In November, Coinbase announced it would relocate its incorporation from Delaware to Texas, with Armstrong publicly praising Texas as “pro-economic freedom” and “crypto-friendly.” The move was not just legal or tax-related—it also signaled alignment with pro-crypto political forces.

Armstrong’s strategy reflects what successful crypto enterprises must do now: operate compliantly within regulatory frameworks, strengthen industry infrastructure, and preserve sharp sensitivity to innovation.

10. Peter Thiel: Building a Crypto Finance Empire

In 2025, PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel demonstrated how top-tier Silicon Valley investors can build systematic advantages inside a decentralized crypto world.

In July 2025, an SEC filing caused a stir: Thiel’s entity quietly acquired 9.1% of BitMine Immersion Technologies, becoming the largest investor in the Ethereum treasury company.

One month later, Bullish (BLSH)—a company Thiel invested in back in 2021—successfully listed on the NYSE. Priced at USD 37, it opened near USD 90, surged as much as 170% intraday, and still closed up about 84%, with a market cap exceeding USD 13 billion.

Beyond asset holdings, Thiel backed the creation of Erebor Bank, designed to serve crypto companies (and planned to hold stablecoins), and also maintained industry media influence through CoinDesk.

In Zero to One, Thiel repeatedly argues that competition is for losers and monopolies generate excess profits. The answer to building monopoly power in a decentralized world is controlling the underlying infrastructure. When all transactions require stablecoins, controlling stablecoin protocols is effectively a form of “minting power.”

Looking across Founders Fund’s portfolio, the strategic intent is clear. The fund rarely invests in DApps, only lightly touches GameFi and NFTs, and focuses instead on: Layer 2 scaling solutions (Caldera), compliance infrastructure (Paxos), derivatives protocols (Avantis), and stablecoin networks (Ubyx).

In November, DeFi perpetual DEX Lighter raised USD 68 million in a new round led by Founders Fund, valuing the company at USD 1.5 billion and making it a unicorn. Thiel is assembling a diversified set of positions to form a complete crypto financial empire.

More recently, in media interviews, Thiel expressed a cautious view on Bitcoin’s upside: after being “absorbed” by institutions like BlackRock and by governments, Bitcoin’s room to rise has narrowed substantially, though volatility will remain high. He described the road ahead as “bumpy and volatile”—opportunities still exist, but not the era of 10x or 100x returns.

Thiel’s playbook reflects long-horizon thinking: build infrastructure advantage during chaos, and convert it into ecosystem-level influence.

Conclusion

Looking back from the end of 2025, there is a sense of anticlimax.

This year, Wall Street giants added Bitcoin to portfolios; the U.S. government established a strategic Bitcoin reserve; stablecoins became essential infrastructure for international payments—crypto completed its transformation from an “anti-system tool” to a “core component of the system.”

More importantly, 2025 revealed the complex flow of power between old and new worlds. Traditional finance elites like Tom Lee paved the road for institutional capital; political leaders like Trump participated directly and profited; crypto-native builders like CZ and Vitalik adapted to institutional demands while trying to preserve innovative momentum.

Yet institutionalization also raises deeper questions. When decentralized technologies are adopted at scale by centralized institutions—when individual authority (like Musk and CZ) can materially move “decentralized” markets—are we heading toward a more concentrated future?

Crypto’s influence has moved beyond technology and finance, becoming a key component of geopolitics and cultural soft power. From Wall Street to the White House, from Silicon Valley to Shenzhen, a new power network is taking shape.