cryptocurrency

Entrepreneur: The Cryptocurrency Job Market Is Exploding

Entrepreneur takes a look at the booming job market fostered by the crytpo and blockchain industry—including some unexpected and new jobs. Click through for the full article and an infographic illustrating some of the new frontiers being explored by companies making forays into this space, as well as concerns for those offering crypto jobs, like compensation.

By Rose Leadem

It can feel like a new cryptocurrency is popping up every hour, and that’s because they basically are. There are more than 1,500 tradeable cryptocurrencies. In 2017 alone, there were between 2.9 and 5.8 million people using crypto wallets throughout the year, compared to 0.3 to 1.3 million in 2013. There’s a $320-billion-plus market cap across all cryptocurrencies today.

It’s safe to say, the crypto market is growing. While this growth has helped some people strike it rich, it’s also benefited the job market. Between December 2016 and December 2017, there was a 207 percent increase in job postings for Blockchain positions on Indeed.com.

While the term “crypto career” might bring to mind technology and engineering professionals, there are a variety of jobs within the field, ranging from full stack developers to compliance officers and community managers. If you’re interested in one of these crypto careers, it might be a good idea to move out west. Unsurprisingly, the tech-savvy state of California employs nearly 30 percent of the country’s crypto employees -- the most of any state. Of course, if moving across the country is out of the picture, another 15 percent of crypto jobs in the U.S. are remote.

Image credit: Hero Images | Getty Images

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7 Trends Driving Blockchain Forward

Blockchain is growing, and it’s bigger than just a platform for cryptocurrency. This roundup from CMS Wire highlights growing trends in the industry. Blockchain is being integrated into areas like 3D printing, smart contracts, and much more. Click through to read about these applications and other trends in the growing blockchain industry; including supply chain applications, managing data, and more.

By David Roe

Blockchain, as we have seen, is quickly becoming an established enterprise technology. There is still way to go, however, before it reaches its full potential. In the meantime, there are a number of emerging and established trends around blockchain that are gaining traction at the moment. There are new technologies and capabilities emerging almost daily as well as new job market demands to build these new technologies. Here are several that we've identified as common themes for blockchain companies.

1. Beyond Cryptocurrency

Mark Grabowski is an associate professor at Adelphi University in Garden City, New York, and teaches a course on bitcoin and blockchain. He points out that bitcoin is the first and best known use case of blockchain. However, cryptocurrency like bitcoin is just one application of blockchain. Blockchain has been used in voting, food safety and shipping, among many other fields and industries. Major companies, including Walmart, IBM and Amazon, are all experimenting with blockchain. “In fact, while there's much debate over the future of Bitcoin (is it a bubble?), one thing you can probably bet on is that the underlying technology of blockchain will at least succeed and be widely adopted, even if cryptocurrency turns out to just be a fad,” he said.

2. Blockchain For Printing

LINK3D, an Additive Manufacturing (AM) software company focused on software advancements for the 3D Printing Industry, has recently unveiled an integration of blockchain technology. For AM, blockchain technology offers middleware to stabilize an untrusted distributed network that continues to gain momentum and popularity in major industries. Blockchain technology is now integrated in LINK3D’s SaaS product, Digital Factory that they launched in 2017. This is a major enhancement to the product that enables enterprises to apply data governance, identify data provenance, ensure data auditability and data validation.

Image credit: Ilya Pavlov on Unsplash

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How You Can Build a Career in Blockchain

An Entrepreneur column explores how to find a career path in the burgeoning field of blockchain technology.

Even when cryptocurrencies fluctuate, blockchain grows in utility and popularity—and as the industry grows, career opportunities also grow. With blockchain providing leading-edge solutions to tech needs and problems, there are more openings than there are qualified people to fill them. However, because everything is new, anyone looking to enter the field is covering new ground as well. The path to a career in blockchain is just as new and unpaved as the technology itself, so it's not as simple as earning a degree.

The column explores how to position yourself for a career in the blockchain industry, from building technical skills and pursuing cryptography education to theory and leadership.

By Nikolai Kuznetsov

In the past 18 months, blockchain has leaped onto the world stage and presented itself as the next-generation solution for many of the tech sector's most pressing problems. It's received influential endorsements from government leaders, industry titans and ambitious entrepreneurs in an unprecedented acknowledgment of the technology's prowess.

To be sure, they aren't wrong. Blockchain, which was first developed to account for the popular cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, is now one of the most dynamic technologies today. As The New York Times wrote back in January, "The Bitcoin bubble may ultimately turn out to be a distraction from the true significance of the blockchain."

All of this enthusiasm has created a surging demand for blockchain-related jobs. According to Upwork, a global freelance exchange, blockchain-related skills were the most in-demand on its platform in the first quarter of 2018. Moreover, TechCrunchreports that "Blockchain-related jobs are the second-fastest growing in today's labor market; there are now 14 job openings for every one blockchain developer."

Of course, blockchain technology is a new job sector without a tried and true path to success. Kids haven't grown up hearing about the technology while fostering ambitions to work on this novel tech. Therefore, the road to a career in blockchain is as new and innovative as the technology itself.

Image credit: Fabian Grohs on Unsplash

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These Projects Are Changing the Way We Do Blockchain

Even when cryptocurrencies fluctuate, the industry holds enormous promise as focus turns to the tech behind the currencies. Fascination with cryptocurrencies spiked last year, but may now be giving way in some spaces to an increased appreciation for the potential of blockchain for computing and transactions. Big companies are signing on, and new businesses have also emerged based entirely on developing blockchain solutions. Bitcoin News highlights Skycoin, Blockhive, and Lisk; three new promising blockchain projects.

By Pini Raviv

Last year, it seemed like everyone was preoccupied with the popularity of cryptocurrencies. Most people were overwhelmed by the sheer breadth of the industry. For nearly twelve months, crypto retained the world’s attention, and they gave it quite a show.

As the calendar changed and the new year arrived, crypto markets took a dip and people’s attention quickly shifted to blockchain technology that powers digital currencies. The blockchain has long been lauded as a transformative and disruptive technology with significant implications for virtually every industry.

Many of the blockchain’s features like its decentralized networking, embedded smart contracts, and ubiquitous reliability are the features that present the security and capability improvements that many companies seek.

The blockchain received glowing endorsements from a cadre of industry and thought leaders. IBM CEO, Ginni Rometty, predicts that “What the internet did for communications, blockchain will do for trusted transactions.” In addition, notorious crypto skeptic, Jamie Dimon, expressed confidence in the blockchain’s importance to the future of computing, describing it as “real.” His word choice may be muted, but it constitutes high praise from an industry CEO reticent to embrace new technologies.

Image credit: Adobe Stock

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Women in Blockchain and Crypto: How to Tackle Gender Inequality

An opinion piece in CoinTelegraph explores some of the reasons behind the gender imbalance in cryptocurrency and blockchain—and how to address the gap. After laying out statistics and discussing contributing factors such as recent inequalities in representation on speaker panels and overt or subtle hostility within the industry, the author goes on to discus factors that might contribute to the imbalance.

He also addresses strategies to welcome more women to the crypto and blockchain space; including investing in women-led blockchain companies and creating more awareness about the industry and how to get involved.

Obviously not all women we're familiar with are totally risk averse, but it's always nice to see discussions centering ways to make crypto and blockchain more welcoming to women. Click through to read more, and keep investing and getting involved.

By Patrick Thompson

The percentage of women invested and involved in cryptocurrency is far lower than that of men. This could be confirmed by numerous surveys and research studies. Moreover, incidents like the North American Bitcoin Conference, where only 3 of the 88 speakers were women and the conference after party was held at a strip club, show a disparity trend present in the industry.

Recently, there has been a push to get more women involved in blockchain technology and cryptocurrency. Initiatives like Mogul’s “Women in Crypto” events and organizations like the Women in Blockchain Foundation have been making an effort to get more women involved in the blockchain and crypto space.

So what exactly do the participation statistics reveal, and what could women do to get more involved in the emerging blockchain and cryptocurrency industries?

Disparity in involvement

According to Coin.dance, as of May 2018, 94.73 percent of Bitcoin community engagement and active participation comes from men and 5.27 percent from women.

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IBM’s Blockchain Team Is Led by Women. Here’s Why That’s a Big Deal for Silicon Valley

A 1,500-member-strong blockchain team: led by a woman.

Blockchain development: led by a woman

Company CEO: a woman.

That's just part of IBM's leadership—Bridget van Kralingen, Donna Dillenberger, and Ginni Rometty; respectively—and all the women are highly qualified and bring expertise, skill, creativity, leadership, and insight to IBM's blockchain efforts. But the women-led nature of the company's team and platform is still something of an anomaly in the world of blockchain and cryptocurrency, so it was wonderful to see this examination of their team and women leading in blockchain.

IBM notes that they practice skills-based hiring, looking for high quality and diversity. It's a natural fit in the growing industry, as the same sensitivity to social responsibility that guides IBM's hiring practices dovetails with many potential applications of blockchain, such as food safety and other areas of tracking and accountability.

The article also explores more pragmatic reasons to look to women to lead: Increased diversity adds a competitive advantage, and in a new and burgeoning industry, diversifying early on makes sense from business and equality-based points of view.

Read on and click through to explore reasons for gender disparity, especially an unfriendly culture and undercurrent in much of the crypto and blockchain world.

Still, many women are hopeful that the culture is changing to be more welcoming to women—and we certainly plan to be at the forefront as women take the lead.

By Ruth Umoh

In the male-dominated world of cryptocurrency, IBM is going against the grain. The company's 1,500 member blockchain team is led by Bridget van Kralingen, senior vice president of global industries, platforms and blockchain. Meanwhile, the actual blockchain development was led by IBM Fellow Donna Dillenberger.

With the tremendous surge in bitcoin's popularity over the last year, blockchain, which is the platform behind bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, has received renewed interest among large corporations and smaller entrepreneurs looking to cash in on the digital gold rush. IBM is one of a long list of companies that have now built their own blockchain platform.

However, the company's predominantly female leadership lies in stark contrast to other blockchain start-ups, which are overwhelmingly run by men. It also makes the company an anomaly within a fintech industry that remains heavily male-dominated. However, van Kralingen, who joined the company in 2004, notes that promoting women to leadership positions isn't a new trend at IBM. The company's CEO, Ginni Rometty, is the most visible example.

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