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 ( $66,577.00 ) 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 ( $66,577.00 ) ’s Lightning network.