As the post-COVID job market continues to heat up, one industry is at boiling point: cryptocurrency. The soaring value of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin has created worldwide excitement – and several new millionaires and billionaires.
But the news headlines haven’t revealed the battle going on behind the scenes. Crypto companies, faced with a dire talent shortage, are scouring the world for people with the skills they need.
Since crypto is an emerging field, there are few engineers with 5 or 10 years of experience within crypto itself. And many of those with relevant experience in more established fields are happily ensconced in those fields and wary of switching paths to work in an emerging industry.
Now companies that want to get into the bitcoin game (in the financial sector and otherwise) are competing for software dev and engineering talent with, well, everybody. A quick search on LinkedIn or Indeed reveals thousands of available roles in the industry, and it’s growing exponentially from year to year.
More and more crypto companies are hiring people away from the banking and fintech sectors. Many of these companies, like leading crypto exchange Binance, are prepared to hire large numbers of remote workers anywhere in the world. “We are a geo-equal-opportunity employer,” said Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao.
And Frederick “Fred” Ernest Ehrsam III, founder of Coinbase – another major crypto exchange – and crypto investment firm Paradigm, told Bloomberg he believed the cryptocurrency industry could potentially create as many jobs as the Internet – or even more.