How Much Do Blockchain Professionals Make?

By Mati Greenspan Analysis, Advisory Money Management | Friday January 31, 2020

LinkedIn recently reported the Most In-Demand Skills of 2020. At the top of the list is – you guessed it -- blockchain.

There’s been a lot of buzz around this report, so let me provide some context. The folks at LinkedIn analyzed all the skills where demand exceeds supply. In other words, they analyzed the top skills of people who are getting hired at the highest rates. And blockchain tops the list.

As you’ll remember from economics class, when demand exceeds supply, prices go up. In the classic supply and demand curve, blockchain jobs are at the top of the demand curve (blue line):

Put another way, blockchain jobs pay handsomely, because there aren’t enough people to fill the jobs. What’s more, the companies that need blockchain talent are typically large financial institutions -- banks, credit card companies, investment firms -- and they’re not hurting for cash.

How Much Do Blockchain Jobs Pay?

To find out, we turned to our friends at Paysa, who have over 50 million salary data points sourced from real users. Their data confirms the LinkedIn findings: since there is high demand (employers want blockchain workers) but low supply (not many blockchain workers available), salaries are impressive.

A blockchain VMware developer in Palo Alto, California could make up to $211,000 (or enough to afford a one-bedroom apartment in Palo Alto). A blockchain engineer in Lincoln, Nebraska could make up to $137,000 (or enough to rent out the entire apartment building).

Financial firms like State Street Corporation and Visa, as well as consulting firms like Booz Allen Hamilton, are hungry for blockchain talent -- especially developers. Another data point: this 2018 CNBC report that pegs blockchain engineers making between $150K-$175K on average.

What does this mean for blockchain investors?

So what? We’re not looking for jobs, we’re trying to find smart blockchain investments. How does any of this help us?

Because it adds color and nuance to the types of investments that we might make. Recognizing that blockchain developers are both expensive, and in short supply, helps us place more importance on the tech talent within a blockchain project, team, or company.

Blockchain developers will benefit. Because developers cost so much, they can pretty much name their salary. Expect blockchain startups to have a hard time attracting talent, unless they’re well-funded. The good blockchain developers will simply go where the money is.

"Technology frontier” cities will benefit. While blockchain jobs are everywhere, it’s cities with the highest concentration of technology companies -- and thus technology talent -- that will benefit the most. Blockchain companies located in fintech hubs like San Francisco, Boston, or Zurich will have it easier.

Tech colleges and universities will benefit. Schools that offer rigorous blockchain education will infuse the job market with new workers -- especially if the schools are located near technology frontier cities. The reverse is also true: blockchain companies located near strong tech colleges will have fresh talent fed into the pipeline every May.

I’ll close with a true story about a young man I know who was working as a blockchain developer for one of the big 4 financial firms. He was in his early 20’s, no college degree, but making six figures as a talented blockchain developer and “explainer” -- the guy who was evangelizing blockchain within the company.

He recently left to start his own blockchain company. Walked away from the ridiculous salary, and had no problem attracting angel investors to plow money into his startup. Whether his new company will succeed remains to be seen, but it’s a great story to illustrate why blockchain experts are in such high demand. If you can write code, you can write your own check.

Health, wealth, and happiness,

John Hargrave

Publisher

Bitcoin Market Journal

‌Well, I suppose it was only a matter of time. Thanks to the magic of tokenization, the crypto community can all have piece of what they want.

That's right bro.... tokenized lambos!!

Kidding aside, according to Knight Frank's Luxury Investment Index, classic cars have been one of the best performing investments of the last decade. So, as we transition to a fully digital, fully tokenized economy, you may not be able to get behind the wheel but at least you can use these beautiful machines as part of your portfolio.

Happy Brexit Day

Muted celebrations ring out through the United Kingdom today. Even those who voted against the Brexit are no doubt at least somewhat relieved that after 3.5 years, it's finally over.

The divorce has been finalized and now the healing process can begin. The very first part of that process will be for the UK and the EU to negotiate on a comprehensive trade deal, which has a tentative deadline of the end of the year.

Far as I know, the issue of the Irish border has yet to be resolved and there are still a few key sticking points. Come to think of it, I'm not even sure if we can classify this as a hard or a soft Brexit?

At least Mark Carney will be able to fulfill his dream and leave the UK as planned on March 16th. At his final meeting at the helm of the Bank of England yesterday Mark refused to give into market demand for a rate cut and instead will leave that decision up to his successor. Got to hand it to the guy, all things considered he's handing off an incredibly stable currency.

Here we can see the GBPUSD over the last few years. For reference, I've drawn a Fibonacci Retracement line from the day of the referendum until the lows that held fast. At the moment, we're sitting just below the 2nd fib level, which could mean that the price is still pretty low, especially now that a lot of the Brexit uncertainty is gone.

So Many Cryptocurrency Options

So, it seems my lambo/moon projections from yesterday didn't exactly play out as planned. Sorry about that. The bullish flag was indeed broken to the upside and the Bitcoin ended up being rejected by resistance at $9,600. A rejection it didn't handle too well and is now again testing the $9,200 handle.

Don't get me wrong. The action is still quite promising as we remain well above the 200 DMA and outside of the downward channel. Two levels that have yet to be tested to the downside. Conservatives however, will prefer to wait until we get a golden cross before declaring an official bull market. Notice in this chart how the orange line is closing in on the blue, but has not yet crossed over.

Volumes on exchanges remain quite strong as are the CME futures. One thing that's caught my attention though is the growing presence of the cryptocurrency options market. Not of Bakkt unfortunately. The new Bakkt bitcoin options seem to be yet another flop for Wall Street's cryptocurrencies darling. Perhaps they'll build up volumes later on like they did with their futures.

However, the options over at Deribit have in fact been growing traction lately. Especially this month due to the breakout. Even though they've lost a bit of market share thanks to competitors coming online, volumes surpassing $1 billion a month is definitely noteworthy.

For your entertainment pleasure this weekend, I highly recommend the following video interview with Campbell R. Harvey, J. Paul Sticht Professor of International Business at Duke University and the inventor of the Yield Curve signal, which we spoke about earlier this week.

Cam not only discusses Bitcoin's status as a safe haven but also backs my projection of a new tokenization enabled barter system that we've been speaking about lately as well. So check it out....