A crypto billionaire from Ontario was named one of TIME’s most influential people of 2021

TIME Magazine has released its list of the most influential people of 2021 and of course, we had to check for any Canadians. Among 99 others was Vitalik Buterin, the Russian-Canadian tech powerhouse who was raised in Ontario, and also happens to be crypto’s youngest billionaire.

Vitalik Buterin was born in Moscow, Russia in 1994, and at the age of 6, his family moved to Toronto. It’s where he would grow up, excel in school, surpass all expectations, get a scholarship and then drop out of the University of Waterloo to build an empire.

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That empire began with Buterin’s father introducing him to cryptocurrency, which led him to learn everything there was to know about how it worked and why. This fascination with alternative digitized currencies grew, and att only 19 years old, Buterin created Bitcoin Magazine, a popular online publication with a focus on crypto. The knowledge he garnered over the years resulted in the creation of Etherium, which has since become one of the most popular cryptocurrencies out there.

Not even a decade after laying the groundwork, in May of 2021 Buterin’s wallet of 333,500 Ether has been valued at an impressive $1.029 billion. While being a billionaire isn’t exactly in style these days, Buterin has given away millions of dollars in crypto to organizations like SENSE Research Foundation, Machine Intelligence Research Institute, and more.

Alexis Ohanian’s TIME write-up on the crypto billionaire describes Buterin as a “builder’s builder”. He also states that he’s “never been more excited about the potential of the Internet, and that’s largely thanks to Vitalik Buterin”. We’d have to agree, after all, the possibilities for crypto are looking endless with minds like Buterin’s behind them.

With that, enjoy folks, and if you’d like to see the full list of TIME’s most influential people of 2021 you can click here.