- The rapid rise of cryptocurrency has created a boom in crypto-related jobs.
- Many of these positions are high-paying and don’t require direct experience, experts say.
- Insider spoke with people in the industry to learn how people could enter the crypto world.
Nearly 12 years ago, the first public cryptocurrency transaction occurred when Laszlo Hanyecz traded 10,000 bitcoins — the equivalent of $63 million today — for two large Papa John’s pizzas.
Since that trade, cryptocurrency has been used to buy houses, digital land, and cars, and bitcoin has become an official currency of El Salvador. The total cryptocurrency industry was worth nearly $2 trillion as of Wednesday, according to CoinMarketCap.
The rapid growth has also meant another boom: the rise of crypto jobs. Job titles containing the terms “bitcoin,” “ethereum,” “blockchain,” and “cryptocurrency” grew by 395% in the US between 2020 and 2021, a LinkedIn analysis found.
Open positions span finance, software development, IT, and customer service, and experts say the barriers to entry are lower than job seekers may expect.
“I think the whole market is still in the make-the-market mode,” Daniel Wasik, the head of talent acquisition at the cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.com, said. “Talent is still being developed, and individuals are developing their own capabilities within the crypto, Web3, blockchain space.”
At Wasik’s company, there are 2,600 open roles across 38 different countries. James Neave, the head of data science at the job-search platform Adzuna, said there were over 7,000 available cryptocurrency jobs on the site in the first seven days of April. That number has not fallen below 4,000 in 2022, Neave added.
The companies posting these jobs vary, from large, established firms like Deloitte, PwC, EY, and PayPal to buzzy startups. If you’re looking to work in this growing…
