Riding the Bitcoin Wave: Jobs in Cryptocurrencies

We have all been sitting on the edge of our seats, watching Bitcoin and altcoin (cryptocurrencies apart from bitcoin) prices skyrocket. Profits are churned at an unprecedented rate and it really seems like pouring all your life savings in cryptocurrencies is a sure-fire way to get rich. I know many of you (including myself) feel a tinge of regret when we look at how fast these currencies are growing because we missed the crypto-train. We can’t know which coins are going to go up or plunge to zero tomorrow, and that potential of multifold gains (at a scale that’s unheard of) brings excitement to the crypto trading game. However, today we are not going to discuss how exciting the cryptomarket is right now, what we are going to discuss is the prospect of building a career in blockchain industry. Cryptocurrency trading is not the only way to make insane amounts of money in the blockchain field, becoming a blockchain expert gives you a more stable source of income. Before going into what constitutes a blockchain expert’s skillset and how you can become one, allow me to shed some light on the reasons why so many people are building their career around blockchain technology, and why hundreds of startups and companies are so eager to get ahead in fully consolidating this technology in their respective applications.

To fully appreciate the beauty of what blockchain is and how it is going to revolutionize a lot of aspects of our daily life I strongly recommend reading Blockchain Revolution by Don Tapscott.

The best way to glimpse the potential of blockchain is by going over real-life use cases already under change. These use cases include exciting applications in the field of supply chain logistics where you can trace back the product in your hand all the way to the manufacturer. This helps in preventing any tampering or adulteration of goods after they leave the manufacturer’s facility. A classic case of this application would be validating the authenticity of medicines which you buy at a drug store. There are many places in the world where adulterated and counterfeit medicines flood the market to make a quick buck for shady organizations; an issue that can be resolved using the public distributed ledger concept of the blockchain decentralized applications.

Another popular use case is the migration of all important documents, including land ownership documents, government IDs, car titles, etc. on the blockchain. This is a very powerful concept since it brings transparency to the governance of a nation, and protects the general public from people in power. Politicians are known to exploit their power in almost all the countries in the world and that is why Honduras is already in the process of implementing such a system, which if when successful would stand out as an example for other countries to follow. These systems not only prevent the abuse of power but also increase efficiency in the governance of the state.

There are many many more applications of blockchain that can revolutionize the world as we know it, make it more transparent, more open, more efficient. Many experts regard blockchain as the next Internet (Internet 2.0), considering it’s vast impact potential.

All being said, it is very important to note that the blockchain technology is in its infancy thus far. Bitcoin was the very first experiment which spawned from the general public dissension on how the government acted in the 2008 crisis. Although the concept was started by anarchists, everyone including the governments has begun to realize why it is so important.

Bitcoin has evolved and grown more complex over the past nine years. Since the blockchain tech is open source, people all over the world experiment with the code, collaborate on finding answers to the complex issues and help the system to evolve faster than ever. By just taking a look at the rate at which blockchain startups are springing up around the world, it is safe to say that choosing to build a career around this tech will help you in the long run. Billions of dollars have been raised in the ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings) thus far, which are largely used to fund the development of different applications.

So we have ascertained that there is more than sufficient funding for developing blockchain applications. However, there is an acute shortage of developers well versed with how blockchain works and what are the critical issues to avoid. This means that the pay and equity in blockchain startups are absolutely insane. The developers with a decent amount of experience are easily earning in the range of $250,000 and $350,000 a year in the US, and generous amounts of bitcoins to supplement their assets.

Big corporations, especially banks have already launched projects to experiment with blockchain technology to make existing services run with increasingly high speeds and efficiency (like instant money transfers from one place in the world to another on private chains, this is where Ripple comes in). So, what do these corporations want in terms of skillset in a potential blockchain developer? Blockchain developers are expected to have a very strong foundation in programming languages like Java, C++, Ethereum’s Solidity and Python. This is in order for the programmer to easily understand the open source codebases from other blockchain projects. If you are interested in working on a Fintech based blockchain project (where most of the funding is), knowing the “banking language” gives you an edge over other developers. If you are really excited to go into the blockchain industry, you might want to get some experience in doing minor projects on Bitcoin and Ether (ERC20) protocols. A basic understanding of these protocols will get you farther than most.

I hope you are very excited about contributing to the blockchain field apart from investing money in cryptocurrencies. Who knows one of you might just change the world :)

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Originally published at www.jobmemos.com.