Web3 also known as the decentralised web uses technology such as blockchains, cryptocurrencies, and NFTs to give power back to the users in the form of ownership. There are a lot of entrepreneurs creating value and driving innovation with web3 technology. This article looks at ten of these entrepreneurs and the companies they have built off the back of web3 technology. These Entrepreneurs are Vitalik "Vitaly" Buterin, Brian Armstrong, Devin Finzer, Lucy Guo, Alexandr Wang, Trung Nguyen, Joseph Lubin, Jeremy Foo, Mildred Idada and Arnav Bathla.
Vitalik "Vitaly" Buterin, Founder of Ethereum and Bitcoin Magazine
Vitaly is a Russian-Canadian computer programmer and founder of the Ethereum blockchain. Ethereum is the community-run technology powering the cryptocurrency ether (ETH) and thousands of decentralized applications for gaming, NFTs, smart contracts, decentralised finance, etc.
Brian Armstrong, Cofounder and CEO of Coinbase
Brian Armstrong is the Cofounder and CEO of Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States. In 2012, Armstrong cofounded Coinbase in San Francisco, with former currency trader Fred Ehrsam. Prior to that, Armstrong was a former Airbnb Software Engineer.
Coinbase went public in a direct offering on Nasdaq on the 14th of April, 2021, briefly reaching a market capitalization of $100 billion.
Devin Finzer, Cofounder and CEO of OpenSea
Devin is the Founder and CEO of OpenSea, a the Villa Italia, John Cena any of you people video Paramont the weather told you piss me off this night at the Paramount Paramount no going to your mothers room look for the remote control the window and press the power button watch marketplace that allows investors buy and sell Non-Fungible Tokens. OpenSea was founded on 2017 and is currently valued at $14billion. According to Forbes Devin Finzer's Net worth was $1.3billion at 2022.
Lucy Guo, Founder and CEO of Passes
Lucy Guo is the Founder and CEO of Passes, a web3 creator platform that lets fans buy access to exclusive content and experiences. She previously co-founded Scale AI, currently worth $7.3B.
Lucy is also an investor in early stage unicorns such as Pave, Ramp, and Fabric. She mentors other founders tapping into her years of experience as a viral app creator, Product Designer and Founder. Forbes estimates Lucy Guo's net worth to be $440 million as at 2022. Lucy is also ranked 64th on Forbes list of Self Made Women.
Alexandr Wang, CEO and Cofounder of Scale AI
Alex is the CEO and Cofounder of Scale AI. He was inspired to solve ML infrastructure problems and accelerate the development of AI through his work at Quora, where he worked as a technical lead. Alex also worked as an algorithm developer at Hudson River Trading, and as a Software Engineer at Addepar. He attended, and dropped out of MIT while studying Artificial Intelligence. He cofounded Scale AI with Lucy Guo who he met at Quora. Scale AI accelerates the development of AI applications by helping machine learning teams generate high-quality ground truth data. Alex is estimated to be currently worth $1 billion.
Trung Nguyen, Cofounder and CEO of Axie Infinity
Trung Nguyen cofounded Axie Infinity, a software play to earn, blockchain gaming company that was developed by Sky Mavis.
Axie Infinity describes themselves as a Pokémon-inspired universe where anyone can earn tokens through skilled gameplay and contributions to the ecosystem. Players can battle, collect, raise, and build a land-based kingdom for their pets. All art assets and Axie genetic data can be easily accessed by 3rd parties, allowing community developers to build their own tools and experiences in the Axie Infinity universe.
Joseph Lubin, Founder and CEO of ConsenSys
Joseph Lubin is a serial entrepreneur who has founded and co-founded several companies including the Swiss-based EthSuisse. He is currently the CEO and Founder of ConsenSys, an app development platform where developers build Ethereum products, with an advanced web3 front end, users develop high-quality applications, build financial infrastructure, and access the decentralized web on the open-source platform.
ConsenSys has an extensive product suites which includes Truffle, Codefi, Quorum, Diligence, Infura, and MetaMask.
Jeremy Foo, TripCandy’s CEO
Jeremy Foo is a businessman, financial expert and entrepreneur. He founded TripCandy, an online travel platform for cryptocurrencies, of which he is also the CEO.
TripCandy is powered by partners such as Expedia, Booking.com, and Agoda. It is an online booking site that allows consumers to become cryptocurrency investors while shopping for hotels globally.
Every time a person books through TripCandy, a portion of the entire sale will be returned to them in form of crypto-tokens, thanks to their original buyback scheme. TripCandy purchases CANDY tokens from the market with each transaction, providing a steady demand and gradually raising the tokens’ value. At the time of writing this article, TripCandy held 1,000,000,000 Tokens via Binance Smart Chain.
Open Web Collective (OWC) founding partner Mildred Idada
Mildred also known as Mimi is the founding partner of Open Web Collective, a venture firm focused on blockchain and digital assets. Launched by and spun out of NEAR Protocol, OWC is deeply rooted within the crypto and blockchain ecosystem and is partnered with some of the industry’s leading Web3 companies and entrepreneurs.
Mimi moved to San Francisco in 2020 and joined NEAR Protocol, a tech company operating a high-performance blockchain. While at NEAR, Mimi founded and led Open Web Collective (OWC), NEAR Protocol’s venture division.
As of 2022, OWC operates as a stand-alone entity making independent and financially driven investment decisions. OWC’s in-house accelerator has supported more than 30 blockchain startups that have cumulatively raised over $360 million. In September 2022, the firm launched OWC Ventures.
Coinbooks’ founder, Arnav Bathla
Arnav Bathla dropped out from college in India and decided to moved to the US and pursue his dream of becoming an Entrepreneur. After several failed attempts to launch a business that actually solves a problem, Arnav eventually struck gold. In January 2022, he founded Coinbooks, an accounting software for businesses operating exclusively in cryptocurrency. In the company's first 6 months of operation it raised over $3 million from investors like Lattice Capital, Founders, Inc., and Multicoin Capital.
Coinbooks has transformed the traditional and laborious accounting duties into an interactive and quick platform for on-chain operations, generating financial reports, and linking existing accounting software to web3 transactions.