During Christmas, the best things come in pairs. Think of Mr. and Mrs. Claus, carols by candlelight, and the immeasurable happiness of chomping into a freshly roasted Christmas ham while warming your hands on a decadent cup of mulled wine.
Together, they are greater than the sum of their parts.
While the festive season’s dynamic duos are well-established and have brought joy and delight to generations of Christmas celebrants, the crypto space’s iconic pairs are starting to find their feet.
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As the competitive duo of chortling Turtle Doves our True Love gave us on the second day of Cryptomas, Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) are undoubtedly the strongest one-two punches in the blockchain world. But aside from these two heavyweights, what other legendary cryptocurrency duos have impacted the space this year?
Let’s unpack four other dynamic crypto tag teams that complemented each other in 2023, building new projects, generating substantial profits, or simply lifting the crypto community after a day in the red.
While some crypto duos are more serious than others, one thing is for sure: prominent crypto players are putting every effort into making the cryptosphere merrier for all.
1. Vitalik Buterin and World of Warcraft (WoW)
OK, I know what you’re thinking, but hear us out: without Blizzard Entertainment’s hit massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) World of Warcraft, there would be no Ethereum.
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Back in 2011, the famed founder of Ethereum’s blockchain, Vitalik Buterin, had a rude awakening to the “what horrors centralized services can bring” when the youngster had his World of Warcraft character stripped of one of his key abilities, one Buterin genuinely enjoyed.
Buterin admitted to having cried himself to sleep as the Warcraft warlock’s Siphon Life spell was removed in patch 3.1; the gaming giant had decided to nerf his favorite class’s abilities.
“I soon decided to quit,” – explains the wunderkind developer in his autobiography. A year after the incident, Buterin came across Bitcoin while surfing for a new purpose in life.
Dropping out of the University of Waterloo, Buterin dedicated his time to blockchain enrichment, learning about crypto projects around the globe.
While traveling and exploring upcoming crypto projects, Buterin co-founded Bitcoin Magazine in 2011. After four more years of enriching his blockchain knowledge and coding skills, Buterin founded Ethereum (ETH) in 2015, becoming a disruptive crypto mogul who brought scalability opportunities that Bitcoin and crypto had never seen.
Since July 2015, Vitalik’s invention revolutionized the world of fintech. The main principle of Ethereum’s scalability? Applications that can work without a central entity behind them. On top of that, Ethereum’s smart contracts are made with its programming language – Solidity.
Ethereum has since become Bitcoin’s major competitor and a staple of the crypto ecosystem. Its reliable tech has become the springboard upon which various other ecosystems have been able to thrive, giving rise to an entire offshoot of protocols called “Layer-2s”, which use Ethereum and the ERC-20 protocol as a foundation for innovation.
2. Jim ‘Inverse’ Cramer and Being Wrong
If there’s one thing TV show host Jim Cramer can be called, it’s controversial. The investment advisor and TV personality has become a running joke in cryptocurrency communities, and for a good reason. As the host of CNBC’s Mad Money in 2023, Cramer has spent more than a year trying to convince his viewers to steer clear of cryptocurrency while Bitcoin embarked on the $43,000 journey.
The TV presenter urged his audience to drop their Bitcoin positions in December 2022, when BTC was skulking around the $17,150 area, having been heavily affected by the unraveling FTX drama. Spurred on by his confidence, as Bitcoin continued to languish in Q1 of 2023, the Mad Money host pulled a major Inverse Cramer in March. Cramer explicitly stated that he’s not “a believer of Bitcoin. Not here, not now.” Later that day, Cramer had to go into ‘safety mode’ on his Twitter account as multiple fans from the audience attempted to ask Mr. Cramer some rather inconvenient questions as Bitcoin soared 18%.
Another hilarious incident involved the downfall of Silicon Valley (SVB) and Signature banks. In February 2023, Cramer endorsed Silicon Valley Bank’s stock as a good option, stating it was “less dependent on venture capital.”
I think you can see where this is going.
Yes, less than a month after Cramer’s SVB-positive episode was aired. SVB was deemed insolvent after its share price plummeted 60% on March 9th and 62% on Friday 10th.
Jim Cramer’s awful timing for cryptocurrency predictions has inspired several crypto traders to apply an inverse trading strategy, fondly given the moniker of “the inverse Cramer.”
Since that infamous day, Bitcoin has skyrocketed 150% to trade at $43,000 at the time of writing. Surprisingly, the TV personality changed his mind on Bitcoin lately, admitting to thinking that “the money has already been made.”
The inadvertently hilarious Mad Money host has taken a 180 on his stance on BTC with one simple rule: “If you like Bitcoin, buy Bitcoin.”
Uh oh.
Naturally, this has set off a mild panic among crypto enthusiasts, who had seen several bull runs for BTC and top altcoins after Jim Cramer lashed out on Bitcoin, Solana, and Dogecoin in late 2022.
He advised his viewers to sell early last year, and the advantages of not taking Cramer’s financial advice seriously are evident in the charts. The unique approach to crypto trading bore fruit, as the crypto community is now in talks of Inverse Cramer ETF, which sounds like easy pickings if Mr. Cramer continues his solid record of incorrect price predictions at the worst time.
3. Two Dogs on the Way to the Moon: Dogecoin and Shiba Inu
The two leading memecurrencies, Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu (SHIB), have more in common than merely using the same mascot. Despite nearly seven years of age difference, the SHIB Army and DOGE Army are among the most energetic cryptocurrency communities.
Indeed, the two canine siblings have nearly four million followers on Twitter, while the memecoins often move in tandem come hell or high water. Despite being more than twice the size in market capitalization, DOGE receives about the same social mentions as SHIB.
Dogecoin and Shiba Inu had humble beginnings: Dogecoin was created as a joke in 2013 by IBM computer virtuoso Billy Markus and Apple developer Jackson Palmer. On the other hand, Shiba Inu saw the light of day following Ryoshi’s vision.
Whether planned or not, Shiba Inu united the world’s dog and crypto fans enough to establish a worldwide movement. However, the mysterious founder of the token disappeared in mid-2022, wiping his Twitter account. Since then, the SHIB Army has taken inspiration from Shytoshi Kusama, the mysterious personality who took the reins from Ryoshi.
Both coins have found a comfortable spot in the cryptosphere, as crypto aficionados were drawn to the vibrant communities. Dogecoin achieved the pinnacle of its price on May 8, 2021, when DOGE was introduced to the public audience by tech mogul Elon Musk, who played his DOGE-inspired alter ego, The Dogefather, on Jimmy Fallon’s Saturday Night Live.
SHIB grew to a $40 billion market cap on October 28, 2021, and scored its all-time high of $0.00008616 the same day. Even though the following years had seen SHIB and DOGE retrace approximately 90% of the all-time high, these cryptocurrencies expanded from memecoins to self-sufficient ecosystems.
Celebrating ten years in crypto this year, Dogecoin is now the largest Proof of Work (PoW) network besides Bitcoin (BTC). Meanwhile, Shiba Inu took the crypto limelight in August when its ground-breaking Layer-2 scaling solution, Shibarium, came to fruition, providing a flurry of new opportunities for fans of the canine coin.
4. Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao and Yi He
In 2023, Binance is a household name in the crypto sphere, but it wasn’t always that way.
The six-year-old cryptocurrency exchange was a mutual vision of two crypto OGs – Changpeng Zhao and his close friend and colleague Yi He. He was the one to hire Changpeng Zhao for a Chief Technology Officer (CTO) position at OKCoin in 2014, around three years before the pair co-founded Binance together.
Binance rose to leadership in the crypto world within three years of its establishment in 2017 but ran into legal challenges almost immediately, originating first from the pair’s home soil – China. The monolithic nation elected to install a blanket ban on crypto in 2017, and Binance switched gears in response, taking a more global perspective.
Quickly deemed ‘the most complete crypto exchange’ by many industry experts, Changpeng Zhao’s expertise in stock markets, owing to his work with Fusion Systems, a high-tech trading platform for stock brokers, Binance had a definitive edge against competitors.
While over 2,000 Binance employees report to Yi He, her modest public presence has raised concerns over the years. Yi He operates Binance Labs, valued at $7.6 billion, but rarely appears publicly. In an interview with Forbes, she shed light on her mysterious lifestyle: “The reason is my English level, to be very honest: I don’t want to make a mistake.”
This paints a picture of a calm, smooth perfectionist, described by her ex-husband and top crypto comrade Changpeng Zhao as “one of the most hard-working people on Earth, even today.” He asserts that even as Binance progresses, the dynamic duo of Hi Ye and CZ isn’t going anywhere: “Tough times in crypto reveal creative, amazing people.”
Binance has been through a wild roller coaster ride this year, culminating in its massive $4.3 billion settlement with the US Department of Justice (DoJ) over the operations of Binance.US. With daily operations barely batting in the aftermath, Binance demonstrated significant resilience under duress.
Stepping down as CEO, Changpeng Zhao’s journey at Binance ended on November 21st. Just days after resigning, CZ took to Twitter to contemplate his next move, which will likely involve investing in promising DeFi projects or advising startups. He even admitted to a keen interest in biotech research and revealed some initial cryptocurrency investments.
It’s clear that despite all that’s happened, CZ has no intention of closing the door on his crypto career.
Check out the first installment of our 12 days of Cryptomas series where we pay homage to Satoshi Nakamoto:
The First Day of Cryptomas: Celebrating Crypto Jesus
Read Day 3 of our 12 Days of Cryptomas Series here:
3 Wishes for MiCA 2.0 as EU Draws Up Second Regulatory Wave
