50 Most Influential Canadians in Crypto and Blockchain

Canadians have been proactive in exploring various technological and entrepreneurial possibilities with blockchain technology right from the word Bitcoin. From innovators like Vitalik, the co-founder of Ethereum, to technologists like Manie Eagar, the creator of the first Bitcoin ATM, we will be exploring Canada’s 50 most influential blockchain personalities. We will be exploring who they are, what great things they accomplished in the blockchain space and why they are on this list. 

1. Ageesen Sri

Based in Toronto, Canada, Ageesen is a tech entrepreneur and early Bitcoin adopter who has been actively involved in the Bitcoin and blockchain space since 2012. His earliest involvement in the blockchain space was building awareness about bitcoin and the emerging cryptocurrency market and founding Locksbit, a cryptocurrency research institute, in 2012.

Ageesen has worked with several public and private organizations, especially those in the financial services industry. More precisely, after Lockbit, he launched Bitcoin.xyz, in 2015, a portal for the Bitcoin market and network stat and also U.cash, a company that develops B2B and B2C decentralized finance applications. Also, he is one of the board of directors at Canada’s Blockchain Association, also called the Digital Chamber of Commerce Canada.

2. Emal Safi

Emal Safi is currently the lead at Aircoins, a telecom company located in Toronto. For starters, Aircoins is one of the first and the biggest Crypto Augmented Reality (AR) platforms. Emal has a remarkable track record in the crypto space. He has taken on several top roles, including being a Business developer, verifying tokens, and auditing Decentralized Finance (DeFi) and Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT) smart contracts. 

Emal Safi is the brains behind eFace, a robust facial recognition technology that enables an easy and secure method of verification. The technology also improves the standard of payments in today’s digital economy. 

He was an instrumental part of the advancement of Blockchain technology and artificial intelligence during his tenure as VP at Smartficial. His early career roles created digital milestones and digital solutions in Canada’s tech space.

3. Mukhtar Mussabetov

With over 30 years of experience working in several industries, Muktar ranks as one of the brightest minds in the Canadian crypto space. Over the years, Mukhtar has worked with several financial institutions. His big blockchain break was the launch of Genesis Block, where he is both the CEO and founding member. He has also worked with several projects, including ISOC Blockchain SIG, HITECH Clinic, ICCNA, and Business Activator. 

Mukhtar has contributed immensely to the growth in the crypto space through working as an advisory member for investors and startups, and serving as part of the administration for popular crypto networks. At the moment, he is more focused on the intersection of blockchain, fintech, and DeFi economy.

4. Bogdan Fiedur

Currently based in Manitoba, Bogdan Fiedur started his first technology company from his basement over 20 years ago. Bogdan serves as the lead blockchain engineer for Auditchain Labs. He has worked as a smart contract architect, blockchain architecture advisor, blockchain expert, Initial Coin Offering (ICO) technical advisor, and all-around IT professional. 

Bogdan has solid ICO experience with advisory roles for over 20 ICO stage blockchain projects. Bogdan now offers consulting services for blockchain companies. Recently, he launched Bitjob, a freelancer job board specifically for blockchain talents, with the platform’s demography consisting mostly of students.

5. Paresh Khatri

Paresh Khatri is the founder of Cannabanc, a startup founded in 2017. It is a blockchain-based banking solution for Cannabis businesses in Toronto. He is also the CEO at Budd Holding Ltd, where they are working towards different strategies for integrating blockchain technology into the cannabis industry. 

Paresh’s system serves as a decentralized and autonomous community-based cannabis-banking platform for members, lab scientists, dispensers, and other players. What is remarkable about Cannabanc is that the system creates job opportunities while making transactions almost seamless in the cannabis market. 

Paresh, with over 25k followers, contributes to discourses around Crypto, Cannabis, and Health forums. He is also open to working as a consultant.

6. Jean-Philippe Beaudet

Jean-Philippe Beaudet launched his career at UbiSoft as a game developer in 2005. He worked in many non-technology related roles until 2013 when he worked as an administrator at a tech startup. 

He worked at the Bitcoin Embassy as a consultant. He also worked as an independent researcher for natural language processing for Luminary. This launched his career in decentralized technology. 

Jean-Phillipe Beaudet co-founded many startups that contributed to blockchain development. His most notable startup is VN3T, which provides Artificial Intelligence (AI) services. He currently works as the Chief Product Officer and product architect at NFTY Token.

7. Steve Wand

Steve is the founder of Not Fungible, Digitible, and Game Credits. His companies are some of the world’s leading software in decentralized art and games. He initially served as Chief Marketing Officer and as a business development professional in different e-commerce, digital solutions, cryptocurrency, and blockchain companies before launching his blockchain companies. 

He supported the companies through various public relations strategies, campaigns, sales, and investments. He has attended over 85 major crypto conferences worldwide. Steve is well versed and has a proven track record in cryptocurrency, blockchain protocol, crypto art, NFT minting tools, and virtual reality (VR). He supports various artists globally.

8. Gene Swinton

Gene Swinton has a Masters degree in Business Administration and Strategy. He has over 20 years of experience in marketing, branding, management, and strategy for diverse brands. In 2018, Gene founded Sports D³, a digital marketplace for the sports industry. Sports D³ is a blockchain-powered platform that helps clubs, sports leagues, and athletes to tokenize, securitize and trade their assets via regulatory-compliant Security Token Offerings. He’s passionate about the practical applications of Blockchain.

9. Terrance Henry

Terrance Henry is currently the CEO of Bulwark Capital Advisors North America, an asset management group with offices worldwide. They specialize in assisting government entities and sovereign wealth funds in acquiring and managing a diverse portfolio, especially cryptocurrency. 

Terrance has experience in being a bridge between financial institutions and tech through his earlier career roles. He started affiliating with cryptocurrency through his roles as a sales and marketing manager for Peertrade X, a revolutionary exchange created by crypto-traders. Terrance also has a Podcast “Let’s Talk Crypto,” available on several platforms.

10. Tariq Ali Asghar

Tariq Ali Asghar has over 20 years of experience, working in the fintech industry in Canada, the United States, and across the globe. He has delivered powerful presentations at many global blockchain events. 

Tariq has served as an advisor to many organizations throughout his career, such as Net-zero enterprises. He is presently the CEO of Emerging Star Investment, which curates services that increase financial education, investments, financial planning, and its fusion with tech. 

Tariq is also a digital innovation champion and is passionate about digital transformation. He is always ready to assist brands and organizations in need of advice in the space. Tariq also shares his inspiring experiences through his LinkedIn posts.

11. Adam Miron

Before making the leap in the crypto world, Adam Miron was known as one of the co-founders of HEXO, one of Canada’s leading cannabis companies. His book about Hexo, titled Billion Dollar Start-Up: The True Story of How a Couple of 29-Year-Olds Turned $35,000 Into a $1,000,000,000 Cannabis Company was an instant hit following its launch.
While Adam Miron is no longer involved in the day to day operations of HEXO, he is the chairman of the board and the interim CEO of Brane Digital Asset Custody. Brane is a digital asset custodian, which caters mainly for institutional grade investors, looking to gain exposure into the cryptocurrency market, in and outside Canada.

12. Ashton Addison

Ashton Addison has an impressive resume and his works in the crypto space speaks volumes. He is the brain behind EventChain; a superb platform that provides a robust solution for verifying counterfeit event tickets using the blockchain. EventChain’s SmartTickets is designed to make events cheaper and more accessible.

Also, Adam founded the online fintech news broadcasting network Crypto Coin Show. He has crypto communities on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. He is also an advisor at Pundi X, Syscoin and investment pitch media, all of which are cryptocurrency based companies.

13. Michael Arbus

Michael Arbus has over 25 years of experience in both finance and operating high growth businesses, having previously worked at leading financial institutions including Merrill Lynch, RBC, TD Securities, and UBS AG in various capacities including Investment Banking, Institutional Equities, Corporate Credit and M&A Advisory. Most of his career was spent on Canada’s largest trading floors. Michael has also been a CEO of three companies.  

Michael received his Masters of Business Administration in 2002, specializing in Derivatives and Financial Engineering from the Rotman School of Management, is a Chartered Financial Analyst (2002). The combination of deep capital markets experience, institutional exchange and trading experience, Digital Asset project management, combined with transaction heavy operations experience led Michael to Bitbuy, a company located in downtown Toronto, with over 75 employees all focussed on offering Clients the best crypto experience.

Bitbuy is one of Canada’s largest digital asset trading platforms, with over 350,000 registered users, having traded over $4,000,000,000 of value, and aims to offers its Clients the best market prices, the greatest market depth and liquidity, and soon the largest variety of crypto and related products out of any platform in Canada. Open an account at Bitbuy today and treat your crypto portfolio like an investment, not a game.

14. Kelghe D’Cruz

Kelghe D’Cruz has a background in nursing education, software development, blockchain, and trading. His interest in crypto spiked in 2012 and spurred him to start a mining operation in his basement where he mined various cryptocurrencies. 

He and his team built BlockBank; a powerful AI assistant application that syncs smart contracts, blockchain networks, asset management, and trading platforms into a robust voice-controlled application. 

Before blockchain was a thing, Keghe had successfully founded, built, and grown companies within the healthcare, education, training, and software sectors, in and out of Canada.

15. Othalia Doe-Bruce

Othalia Doe-Bruce holds certificates in ethereum blockchain development, the Certificate in Investment Performance Management (CIPM) from the CFA Institute, a Masters in Business Administration in investment finance, and a Masters degree in management. She founded InnovFin Consulting, a firm that is changing the fortunes of many finance companies using innovative technology like blockchain. She is also an executive at BlockchainHub, a non-governmental organization (NGO) within York University, providing awareness for startups. During her time there, she was able to grow the community to over 6,000 members. She is also a co-author of Crypto-Finance and Mechanisms of Exchange, published by Springer. She has spoken about blockchain adoption in many media platforms and financial events.

16. Raghu Thiyagharajan

He is a blockchain developer, consultant, and trainer. His passion for distributed ledger technologies and blockchain has pushed him into the big leagues in the crypto space. In the past four years, he has been working on different areas of blockchain and web development like DeFi applications, smart contracts, chain codes, permissioned blockchain solutions, full-stack web development using React, NodeJS, and several others. 

Besides organizing workshops on blockchain and related technologies, Raghu is lauded by many for his contributions to the crypto space. He trained over 800 working professionals and students on blockchain technologies. He worked as an investment banking analyst for about four years prior to starting his own startup, CelebratON.

17. Manie Eagar

Manie Eagar helped launch the first bitcoin ATM in the world in Vancouver. The tech entrepreneur has an international track record in banking, IT/telecommunications, investment management and works as a director at the Bitcoin Alliance of Canada.

Manie is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of digital futures, a consulting firm that focuses on innovations in rapid technology and convergence. He has continued to work on projects that aim to accelerate “techno-forming” globally. His record of accomplishment in the cryptocurrency space includes being the founder and chairman of the Blockchain Association of Canada. He was once a contributing author of an Amazon bestselling fintech book. His wealth of experience has enabled him to speak at many conferences on digital economy. 

18. Colin Bhimsen

Colin Bhimsen is the CEO of World Money Pay, American Payments, and Canada’s leading mobile payment solution, Dinero. He is an inventor and likes creating innovative solutions that create easy, fast, and reliable transactions. Some of his inventions include a system and method for transferring bitcoin & digital currency via mobile devices. 

His many businesses have provided easy to use payment solutions that could only be imagined several years ago. Before getting into the cryptocurrency space, Colin Bhimsen has worked in many tech fields. He is experienced in cyber security, fintech inventor, ecommerce, AI and more.

19. Kelsey Cole

Kelsey Cole is an entrepreneur, speaker, & women’s rights activist. She is at the forefront of the tech sector in Canada, particularly through her work on blockchain and cryptocurrency projects. She is regarded as a female pioneer in the blockchain space. 

Over the last couple of years, she has worked closely with the United Nations (UN) partnership office, establishing programs between the private sector, global governments, and NGOs to achieve the UN’s sustainable development goals (SDG). Some of her successful projects focus on achieving SDG #5, Gender Equality. Her company, Magic Vs. Machine, has worked with a large list of A-list companies and brands like The Grammys, Tesla, and others.

20. Alexandra Moxin 

Alexandra Moxin is an executive leader and entrepreneur. She is the founder of Advance Tech Media and host of the Advance Tech Podcast, a platform that has allowed her to interview tons of personalities, including developers, founders, and leaders of different companies globally in the blockchain space. 

Alexandra’s podcast is ranked globally as one of the top 10% of podcasts in the world. She was formerly media evangelist for F2Pool, where she created new and compelling ways for the company to tell its stories.  She currently sits on the Open Crypto Alliance advisory board, which is a tapestry community effort aimed at addressing the negative effects of patent assertion. She has a wealth of experience in digital transformation and understands emerging technologies like Bitcoin.

21. Giuseppe Gori 

Giuseppe Gori is a blockchain technology architect, communications specialist, and speaker. He is the owner of Gorybyte Inc, a blockchain crypto-network that is unpermissioned and uses a cooperative consensus. Giuseppe has won many awards and is recognized globally for his work around making crypto platforms scalable, improving various network throughput, minimizing volatile, and reducing network fee. He was referenced by George Gilder in his newsletter as: “an internet legend.” Through his writing and speaking engagements, he spreads the message of decentralization being the key to solving some of society’s most difficult problems.

22. Jon Matonis

Jon Matonis is one of the founding directors of the Bitcoin Foundation. During the course of his illustrious career, Jon Matonis worked with some of the most outstanding companies, including holding senior influential posts at VISA International, VeriSign, Sumitomo Bank, and Hushmail. He currently works with Cypherpunk Holdings, a privacy protocol investment company, where he works as the Chief Economist.

He is a monetary economist that contributes to the nonpolitical digital economy. Outside his role at Cyberpunk Holding, Jon Matonis also served as an independent board director to top companies in the crypto space, especially brands interested in Bitcoin, Blockchain, mobile payments, and gaming sectors.  Given his wealth of experience, he has featured on top media platforms such as CNN, CNBC, Bloomberg, NPR, Al Jazeera, RT, Virgin Radio, and numerous podcasts. He is a fintech columnist with prominent publications on platforms like Coindesk and Forbes.

23. Scott Cunningham

Scott Cunningham is an alumnus of the University of Alberta in Merchant Mastery. He is currently the CEO of an e-commerce marketing agency and a Shopify certified expert. 

He has been involved in the e-commerce market for over ten years, where he builds campaigns for businesses. He is also an interviewer and the host of the podcast Crypto and Things. Scott’s podcast has been listed on iHeartRadio, Spotify, and Apple podcasts. He has also interviewed 70 executives and founders of blockchain companies.

24. Dylan Dewdney

Dylan Dewdney is a co-founder and serves as Chief Stratosphere Officer and Chief Executive Officer at Kylin network. He is building Data Economy 3.0 on Polkadot while aiming for a parachain. He also doubles as the Chief Effort Officer of NFT3, where he is sanctioned to build a virtualized identity layer via decentralized identifiers (DIDs) and NFTs for the web 3 Renaissance.

While he has been in the crypto space for a while, his crypto journey kicked off in 2012.  He is an active member of the Toronto crypto community and has taken roles in the blockchain ecosystem including being an advisor, investor, builder, and participant in many projects. He is an angel investor, with several startups, an analyst, and growth driver.

25. Adam Atlas

Adam Atlas is a lawyer and his firm, Adam Atlas Attorney, is one of the most recognised firms in Canada that provides legal support services to payment and crypto business. From debit cards to DeFi to e-wallet to exchanges and more, his company deals with anything that has to do with understanding the laws as it relates to this sector.  His company focuses on all the laws involved in the digital economy system.

He is also an expert on biometric models and e-health laws and regularly gets consulted for professional advice. He has been a legal columnist with The GreenSheet for 18 years, where he writes about electronic payments. He is a member of many techs and law forums where he contributes valuable information.

26. Anne Connelly

Anne Connelly is a blockchain consultant and speaker. Her interest in blockchain tech mostly revolves around blockchain use cases that improve the lives of individuals in emerging economies. One place she does this is lecturing world leaders on the potentials that blockchain technology has in solving macro issues and improving lives. She does this as one of the faculty heads at Singularity University.

Since stepping foot in the crypto space in 2012, Anne has played a significant role in advancing the course of blockchain technology on a macro scale. Thanks to her incredible knowledge and experience, Anne has gone on to co-author the book Trust, a brilliant and graphic novel that explains the new trust paradigm that blockchain technology affords us. She has received several awards, including one from the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC), where she was honored as one of the 12 most influential leaders changing Canada.

27. Michael Popert

Michael Popert is the chief executive officer of Crypto Finances, an organization that provides information and help to people looking to get into Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. He started studying cryptocurrency in 2010 and went into investing in 2014. 

He is the Chief Executive Officer at Crypto Finances. Crypto Finances provides information on cryptocurrency investing and management. He has a total of 10,604 LinkedIn followers and uses his organization as an affiliate marketing platform for new apps and websites in the Canadian crypto space.

28. Rob Hitchens

Rob Hitchens has worn many hats in his career. He is a programmer, consultant, sales expert, lead, and Google specialist. He got into Blockchain in 2015 and dedicated a year to studying it. 

He is the co-founder of Solidied.io, a company that focuses on software quality assurance. He is also an instructor and co-author of training materials at B9lab. He is well versed in Ethereum, Quorum, Hyperledger Fabric, Hyperledger Sawtooth Lake, and Tezos. He loves following industry trends and is a fast learner. He is a top contributor to Ethereum Stack Exchange since 2016 and frequently blogs about coding techniques, patterns, and pitfalls.

29. Lance Morginn

Lance Morginn is one of the co-founders and the president of Blockchain Intelligence Group (BIG). BIG is providing blockchain-agnostic analytic and search tool to help trace funds’ paths on the blockchain. This will help law enforcement agencies tackle financial crimes over a blockchain. He founded Planet City Graphics, which grew to become a multi-million-dollar company in 18 months.

With over 20 years experience up his sleeves, it doesn’t come to us as a surprise to learn of his many successful businesses. Not just that, his experience has also provided him an opportunity to work with some of the most successful businesses out there today.

30. Boris Wertz

Boris Wertz is a die-hard crypto enthusiast and has been promoting the crypto space since he got acquainted with the technology several years ago. He loves to describe himself as an entrepreneur turned investor on several of his social media platforms, including LinkedIn. He is the co-founder of AbeBooks, which he eventually sold to Amazon. 

Today, he is the founder and general partner at Version One Venture, an early-stage investing in mission-driven tech companies across America. Since the company launched in 2012, it has backed over 60 tech companies. Besides his role at Version One Venture, Boris is also Lead Independent Director at Ether Capital, a Toronto-based company focused on becoming the central business and investment hub for the Ethereum ecosystem.

31. Michael Vogel

Michael Vogel is a graduate of Simon Fraser University, where he acquired a degree in electronics and system engineering. He is the CEO and founder of companies Encore Ventures, Netcoins, and Coinstream.

His most remarkable work in the blockchain space is starting and growing Netcoins; one of the largest and fastest-growing cryptocurrency exchange platforms, founded in 2014. Netcoins allows users to easily buy and sell crypto assets like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tether, Litecoin, QCAD, and XRP in a trusted environment.

He also founded Coinstream in 2019, a platform that provides cryptocurrency exchange using credit and debit cards. Coinstream also offers OTC trading services to assist new users.

32. Dustin Walper

Besides being the CEO of Newton, Dustin Walper is also an executive director at Bowtie life insurance company. Between 2015 and 2017, Dustin co-founded Akira Health and Myplanet  between 2009-2015. He studied at Ivey Business School at Western University from 2004-2008.

His most remarkable work in the cryptocurrency world is his company Newton. Newton.co kicked off operation in 2018 and is headquartered in Toronto. It markets itself as a low fee cryptocurrency exchange with competitive spreads, no trading fees, and low fees overall. It is also Canada’s first commission-free cryptocurrency brokerage with no trading fee. It currently supports Ethereum, Bitcoin, and Litecoin with plans to offer more coins in future.

33. Justin Hartzman

Justin Hartzman is the CEO and Co-Founder of CoinSmart, a cryptocurrency exchange based in Toronto that simplifies cryptocurrency investing for participants of all experience levels through a simple interface, education, and customer support. Hartzman founded CoinSmart on the basis of making cryptocurrency accessible to all. Justin strongly believes in the promising future cryptocurrency has to offer and the importance of it being a part of any well balanced portfolio of investments.

As a seasoned business leader and entrepreneur, Justin has led numerous companies from start-up to successful exit. His proven track record of entrepreneurial success includes founding the first website brokerage exclusively serving online businesses, pioneering the industry and achieving over $100M in transactions to Fortune 1000 companies, PE firms, family offices, and venture funds.

34. Bilal Hammoud 

Bilal studied and graduated from the University of Saskatchewan, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in chemical engineering in 2008. He was a project manager for six years at Volker Stevin. 

He founded and became the president and CEO of the National Digital Asset Exchange (NDX.IO) in 2018. NDAX.IO is a cryptocurrency exchange that renders service to both institutional and personal clients. It helps them safely buy, sell and trade cryptocurrencies. It is also considered one of Canada’s most advanced cryptocurrency trading platforms, where investors can trade multiple digital currencies that are paired directly with Canadian Dollars.

35. Vitalik Buterin

Vitalik Buterin is considered one of the most influential personalities in the blockchain space, best known for co-founding Ethereum. Vitalik is a Russian-Canadian programmer and writer. He was an active contributor at BitcoinMagazine, before starting work on Ethereum. 

Although he attended the University of Waterloo, he dropped out in 2014 when he was awarded a grant of $100,000 from the Thiel Fellowship, a scholarship created by venture capitalist Peter Thiel. Leaving school, he dedicated most of his time, working on the Ethereum ecosystem. Ethereum, which is one of his most successful projects so far, can best be described as the biggest distributed smart contract blockchain.

36. Andrei Poliakov

Andrei Poliakov co-founded Coinberry, one of Canada’s leading digital currency platforms. His company was able to partner with a government municipality, a feat that other projects can only dream of. Also, Coinberry is the first crypto-only trading platform to get registered with the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) in Canada. In terms of his education, Andre Poliakov has an MBA from the Schulich School of Business. He also has an engineering degree, which he earned from the University of Toronto.

37. Dave Feller

David Feller is the brain behind Mogo, a leading digital financial platform that boasts of over 1,000,000 users. Over the last couple of years, the platform has consistently generated revenues exceeding $60 million yearly. David is incredibly passionate about leveraging technology to develop robust digital solutions that will spur consumers to improve their financial health. 

This resulted in the launch of Mogo Crypto, a platform where Canadians can buy and sell cryptocurrencies almost seamlessly. David studied and graduated from the University of Western Ontario, where he bagged a Bachelor of Arts in economics and French. He was also once a member of the Young Entrepreneurs Organization of Canada.

38. Jésuel Albernhe

Jesuel Albernhe has been an entrepreneur since 2001 and has a list of impressive businesses under his belt. He joined the digital economy as an entrepreneur in 2010, thanks to his passion for the digital space and marketing. Jesuel developed his expertise in digital project management in 2005 by creating his first websites and electronic businesses. He has completed more than fifty online projects at the moment. He is the owner of several innovative web platforms with strong growth potential, mainly related to online advertising, customer acquisition, commerce electronics, network marketing and cryptocurrencies.

39. Mark Binns

Mark Binns is well known for his work at Netcoins, a software that better facilitates the purchase and sale of Bitcoin for end-users. He is currently the CEO of Bigg Assets and sits on the board of NTC Holdings, DeFi Ventures, and the British Columbia Securities Commission.

Interestingly, Netcoin isn’t the only business he has founded. Before Netcoin, the tech genius had more than 20 years of  hands-on experience of building robust market strategies and customer driven businesses. Thanks to his wealth of experience, Mark Binns was able to build two very successful consulting companies which he later sold.

40. Michael Katchen

Michael Katchen co-founded Wealthsimple, one of Canada’s most prominent fintech successes. With a 5 billion dollars valuation, Wealthsimple was initially Canada’s leading robo-advisors. Over the years, the fintech company diversified its offering by launching online brokerage Wealthsimple Trade, and then, crypto-trading app Wealthsimple Crypto. 

Called an industry mover by the Financial Post, and an agent of change by the Canadian Business Magazine, Michael Katchen has been described with several names in the Canadian blockchain space.

41. Elisabeth Préfontaine

Elisabeth Préfontaine founded Octonomics, an independent research and consulting company that is dedicated to financial technologies. She was particularly keen on cryptocurrency, the ever changing world of bitcoin along with its robust ecosystem and applications. Her company is truly independent; free from any legacy business models and offers an unencumbered perspective on the current emerging trends. Before becoming a consultant, Elisabeth Préfontaine was head of wealth sales at BlackRock iShares.

42. Mitchell Demeter

Mitchell Demeter is a serial entrepreneur and an innovator. He is the CEO and president of Netcoins, a remarkable crypto trading platform, where users can buy and sell multiple cryptocurrencies without any hassle. His platform is paving the way for more industry regulation and security. 

He is not only a serial entrepreneur but also an early figure in the cryptocurrency industry. The tech guru has made it to the front pages of several publications including the Wired, RT, Time, Huffington Post, Fast Company, and Forbes. His outstanding track record has earned him a Forty Under 40 award from Business in Vancouver magazine.

43. Anthony Di Iorio

For over three decades, Anthony Di Iorio has launched more than 10 companies and invested millions in numerous startups recently pointing emphasis toward blockchain startups. He is one of the co-founders of Ethereum, the decentralized smart contract platform with $150 billion in market cap. He is currently the founder and CEO of Decentral Inc.

Anthony has several years of experience in finance and business an experience he brings into leverages as a blockchain and cryptocurrency expert. Thanks to his many years of experience, Anthony has been able to advise a number of companies and has shared his visionary insight with hundreds of thousands of people around the world. He has delivered numerous lectures including speeches, keynote addresses and interviews, and even hosted over 100 technology events.

44. Jonathan Hamel

Jonathan Hamel is one of the founders and CEO of Académie Bitcoin. The company is based in Montreal and prides itself as one of the countries leading bitcoin and blockchain expertise consulting firms. Jonathan is lauded for his expertise in emerging markets, especially in Africa, where he and his team has contributed immensely to various mobile payment and alternative banking projects. 

He has been involved with numerous events in the Bitcoin community since early 2013. He also contributes to publications like Forbes, The Huffington Post and research projects with the Montreal Economic Institute, and more.

45. Marc-Antoine Ross

Based in Montreal, Marc-Antoine has founded four companies, advised and invested in several others. Some of the companies he has worked with in the last couple of years are affiliated with finance, health or security. Marc started his first company at the age of 21. 

He is very well known in the Canadian tech space for his powerful strategy filled advice that has helped several startups. He also mentors companies through Founder Institute and FounderFuel. He is currently the CEO of Streaming Fast, a permissionless and composable open-source protocol financial system. He is an ambassador for United Way and has raised significant donations from the tech community.

46. Jean Amiouny

Jean Amiouny is a business analyst and the CEO of Shakepay, a Montreal-based technology company that makes crypto trading accessible and easy for everyone. 

Shakepay is a platform with the mission to create open access to building wealth and proffer solutions for financial issues. Since Shakepay was launched in 2015, the platform has served over 600,000. 
Shakepay is a significant player in the crypto space. The platform has reportedly facilitated a whooping $3 billion in digital currency transactions. Jean also co-founded White Payments, based in UAE, and later  acquired by Payfort; this was right before starting work at Shakepay.

47. Francis Pouliot

Francis Pouliot has carved a niche for himself in the Canadian crypto space. Since kicking off his crypto journey in 2013, Francis has dedicated most of his time to researching and learning about this unique industry. He is also founder and CEO of Satoshi Portal, a Montreal-based fintech startup that specializes in building software and financial infrastructure for the Bitcoin Standard. 

Besides owning the Satoshi Portal, Francis is also the co-founder of Catallaxy, a blockchain expertise and R&D firm. He serves as an adviser to numerous government bodies like OSC’s Fintech Committee and more. Despite being a director at the Bitcoin Embassy, he also founded the Bitcoin Foundation Canada in 2014. His passion for cryptocurrency and blockchain technology has seen him work with some of the most successful blockchain projects.

48. Martin Lalonde

Martin Lalonde is the CEO of Rivemont Investments. He is a portfolio manager who believed enough in the future of cryptocurrencies to launch one of the first funds in Canada dedicated to this opportunity. His role at Rivemont makes him responsible for all the strategies and how various asset classes and the selection of securities are allocated.

49. David Pouliot

David Pouliot is a lawyer and a crypto enthusiast with an impressive track record of building some of the most sophisticated technologies in the crypto space. He has a MBA from Telfer School of Management in Ottawa. 

David is the founder of Coinmiles, which is an ecommerce app that gives about 35% cashback to users who pay in cryptocurrency. CoinMiles is one of the first bitcoin reward apps in Canada and is currently making waves and recording amazing partnership deals with top brands and companies in Canada. Over the last couple of years, the company has signed partnership deals with top brands like Home Depot, Footlocker and eBay.

50. Matthew W. Jamal Ross Young

Matthew W. (Jamal Ross) Ross Young is an experienced serial entreprenneur. He is a self-taught Forex trader. He is the Executive Director of BTC Mining Canada Ltd. The company make buying and selling coins easy and also helps set up mining.