15 Crypto Leaders Named to Forbes 30 Under 30 List

Forbes named 15 young cryptocurrency business leaders to its 2022 edition of its 30 Under 30 list.

Despite its misleading name, the annual Forbes 30 Under 30 list is actually made up of 600 people under 30 from 20 fields including finance, gaming and music. Last year's list included Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of FTX and Alameda Research, and Brian Tubergen, co-founder of U.S. initial coin offering and trading platform CoinList.

In the latest issue of Forbes, published on December 1, Forbes noted that the latest cohort of people under the age of 30 have combined funds of more than $1 billion. Forbes included about 15 crypto figures on the list, including Alamada Research co-CEOs Caroline Ellison and Sam Trabucco, OpenSea co-founder Alex Atallah and PleasrDAO founder Emily Yang.

The category with the most cryptocurrency leaders (11) is finance, which includes Clinton Bembry, founder of Slingshot, a decentralized finance (DeFi)-based trading platform; Tegan Kline, founder of blockchain data indexing protocol Edge & Node; Roneil Rumburg, co-founder of the blockchain-based streaming service Audius, was selected.

Outside of finance, PleasrDao's Yang was named in the art category for his work on an impressive collection of NFT collectibles. Blockworks co-founders Michael Ippolito and Jason Yanowitz were also included in the media category for their efforts in cryptocurrency news.

This year's crypto contingent represents a 50% increase over the 10 young crypto leaders nominated in the previous class and reflects the growing mainstream media acceptance of cryptocurrencies. This may be partly due to the growing number of crypto entrepreneurs making the list of the richest people over the past 12 months.

Last month, seven cryptocurrency founders made it onto the Australian Financial Review's annual list of the richest entrepreneurs aged 40 and under. In the list of the world's richest billionaires in 2021 published by Forbes since April, there are also 13 cryptocurrency leaders, a three-fold increase from last year.