Series
The Unsung
Most recent move first, each dated by the day its move became public.
Leadership & Talent
Ryan Dennis Pitches TON to Telegram's 800 Million Users
A court blocked Telegram's Gram tokens in 2020; from 2023, Ryan Dennis spoke for the TON Foundation as a TON wallet opened inside Telegram.
Institutional Custody & Asset Management
Donald Verrilli Wins Grayscale's Bitcoin ETF Case
Verrilli argued Grayscale v. SEC on March 7, 2023, and spot bitcoin ETFs later drew $57.2 billion net while $27.9 billion left Grayscale's fund.
Layer 1s & Infrastructure
Danny Ryan Steers the Merge That Unplugged Ethereum's Miners
Danny Ryan coordinated Ethereum's switch to proof of stake on Sept. 15, 2022; CCRI found it cut the network's electricity use by 99.988 percent.
Layer 1s & Infrastructure
Protolambda's Blobs Cut Rollup Fees and Ethereum's Rent
Protolambda's EIP-4844 dropped Base's median fee from $0.59 to under a cent in March 2024, and cut what Base pays Ethereum.
Layer 1s & Infrastructure
Superphiz Takes On Prysm, and Lighthouse Inherits the Majority
A February 2022 post named Coinbase and Kraken as the biggest Prysm operators; by October 2026, Lighthouse ran 52.66 percent of consensus nodes.
Security & Incident Response
samczsun Answers Crypto's 911 Calls
samczsun started a $9.6 million white-hat rescue in 2020, protected $350 million at SushiSwap in 2021, then founded SEAL's emergency hotline.
Bitcoin & Mining
Alex Gladstein Turns Human Rights Money Into Bitcoin Code
HRF's Bitcoin Development Fund began with a gift of close to $50,000 in June 2020 and counted 383 projects in 70 countries by August 2026.
Regulation & Enforcement
Hester Peirce Waits Six Years for a Token Safe Harbor
Peirce proposed a three-year token safe harbor on Feb. 6, 2020; the SEC proposed its own on Aug. 18, 2026, weeks before she left.
Wallets & Consumer Apps
Mike Peterson Pays El Zonte in Bitcoin and Tags Bukele
Bitcoin Beach paid El Zonte's river cleaners in bitcoin in September 2019, and El Salvador passed its Bitcoin Law in June 2021.
DeFi Protocols
Kain Warwick's Synthetix Plants Yield Farming Eleven Months Before COMP
Synthetix paid SNX to Uniswap liquidity providers from July 2019, eleven months before Compound's COMP set off DeFi's yield farming summer.
Bitcoin & Mining
Michel Rauchs Helps Count Bitcoin's Watts, and Cambridge Recounts Them
Michel Rauchs co-designed Cambridge's Bitcoin electricity index, launched July 2, 2019, and a 2023 revision cut its 2021 estimate from 104.9 to 89.0 terawatt-hours.
Protocol Research
Phil Daian Names MEV, and Flashbots Builds Its Market
A 2019 Cornell Tech paper named the profit in ordering trades; by October 2026, 92 percent of Ethereum slots ran through Flashbots' MEV-Boost.
Layer 1s & Infrastructure
Eric Conner Sparks Ethereum's Fee Burn, and Miners Fume
Eric Conner championed Vitalik Buterin's fee-burn plan in 2019; Ethereum has burned 4.6 million ETH since August 2021, though the burn shrank in 2025.
Regulation & Enforcement
Caitlin Long's Crypto Bank Law Meets the Fed's Third Tier
Wyoming created crypto banks on Feb. 26, 2019; the Fed rejected Caitlin Long's Custodia in 2023 and approved Kraken's bank only in 2026.
Protocol Research
Kevin Owocki Squares the Crowd at Gitcoin
Gitcoin ran its first quadratic funding round in February 2019 with a $25,000 match; by 2022 matches topped $3 million, and fake accounts grew alongside.
Leadership & Talent
Ryan Dennis Questions Token Sales in ICO Alert's Paid Reports
In 2018, Ryan Dennis bylined seven archived ICO Alert reports that disclosed a fee; the SEC later fined two other ICO sites over undisclosed fees.
Institutional Custody & Asset Management
Christopher Giancarlo Lets Bitcoin Futures Self-Certify
The CFTC let CME and Cboe list bitcoin futures on Dec. 1, 2017, and a court cited that market to overturn the SEC's Grayscale denial.
Wallets & Consumer Apps
Dieter Shirley and William Entriken Give Each Cat a Deed
Dieter Shirley drafted Ethereum's NFT standard while building a cat game in 2017; William Entriken finished it, and NFT buyers grew 30-fold in 2021.
Security & Incident Response
Kim Nilsson Traces Mt. Gox's Missing Bitcoin to BTC-e
WizSec's Kim Nilsson traced stolen Mt. Gox bitcoin to BTC-e and named Alexander Vinnik his chief suspect the day Vinnik's arrest broke.
Layer 1s & Infrastructure
Nick Johnson Makes a Name for Ethereum's Addresses
Nick Johnson's naming registrar went live on May 4, 2017; .eth fees peaked at $55.40 million in 2022, and squatting has trailed it since launch.
Bitcoin & Mining
Pieter Wuille Splits the Signature, and Bitcoin Splits Too
Pieter Wuille proposed segregated witness in Hong Kong in December 2015, and 97.5 percent of Bitcoin transactions spent SegWit in September 2026.
Layer 1s & Infrastructure
Fabian Vogelsteller Files Issue 20, and Tokens Follow
Fabian Vogelsteller posted a six-function token standard in 2015; by October 2026, Ethereum and Tron, which matches it, held 77.3 percent of dollar stablecoins.
Security & Incident Response
Tigran Gambaryan Seizes 69,370 Bitcoin, Then Nigeria Seizes Him
IRS agent Tigran Gambaryan traced corrupt agents, BTC-e and Welcome to Video, then spent eight months held in Nigeria as a Binance executive.
Bitcoin & Mining
Joseph Poon and Thaddeus Dryja Bolt a Network Onto Bitcoin
Joseph Poon and Thaddeus Dryja posted the Lightning Network paper in February 2015, and public channels fell from 81,755 to 32,518 between 2022 and 2026.
Bitcoin & Mining
Wladimir van der Laan Merges Bitcoin Core, Then Hands Off
Wladimir van der Laan maintained Bitcoin Core from April 2014, made about 24 percent of its merges in 2020, and stepped back in January 2021.
Wallets & Consumer Apps
Jordan Kelley's Robocoin Serves Bitcoin in a Vancouver Café
Robocoin's kiosk opened in a Vancouver café on October 29, 2013; FTC data put 2023 losses to Bitcoin ATM scams above $110 million.
Security & Incident Response
Sarah Meiklejohn Follows a Fistful of Bitcoins
Sarah Meiklejohn's 2013 paper used 344 test payments to put names on 1.8 million Bitcoin addresses, and tracing firms now run variants of it.
Bitcoin & Mining
Slush Pools Bitcoin's Miners, and Pools Win Nearly Every Block
Marek Palatinus proposed pooled mining on November 27, 2010, and mempool.space now lists just 290 of the past year's 52,381 blocks as Unknown.