Failure to Launch: Developer Scarcity Crippling the Blockchain Industry

Author: John Souza

After watching the world of cryptocurrency expand rapidly over the last few years, I noticed something interesting — and disturbing: investors were going absolutely nuts over the potential of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other cryptocurrencies, even to the point of mortgaging their homes and running up huge debt to buy in.

But that’s not the part that troubles me. What really has me scratching my head is basic economics:

As with any new technology, there is way more potential than there are people equipped to turn vision into reality.

I’ve seen this scenario before. A few times, in fact.

The first time was in the late 1990s when investors were taken with all things dotcom. They were throwing money at anyone with a business plan on the back of a napkin, regardless of its monetization strategy. (And we all know how that turned out.)

But before the crash in the early years of the new millennium, there was a lot of cash on hand for anyone who claimed they could code a website. The skill was so in demand that someone who had simply paged through “Web Design for Dummies” or taken a weekend crash course could command thousands of dollars for putting up an ugly, static HTML brochure site. It didn’t have to work well or look good; it just had to be live, online, and the designer was handed a blank check.

Something similar happened a few years later, when YouTube came on the scene, Facebook opened its doors to anyone with a valid email address, and Twitter was born. And just as with the dotcom bubble, suddenly, every marketer was worried about leveraging social media.

Self-proclaimed “social media gurus” started charging an arm and a leg for little more than telling their clients to post cat videos on Facebook a few times a day and to tweet every 15 minutes. It was kind of embarrassing.

And that’s when I started Social Media Marketing University (SMMU), now Kingsland University. I wanted a single place where companies could go for comprehensive social media and online marketing training and resources for professionals across a number of industries.

Since then, the market has smoothed out, and I like to think that Kingsland has had a role in that. We’ve won a number of industry awards, such as About.com’s Reader’s Choice “Best Online Education Website,” the Mashable Award for One of Five Best Social Media Services for Small Businesses, and a Stevie Award for Best Social Media Training Site.

But what I’m most proud of has been our ability to help train aspiring social media managers with a standardized curriculum, and to help companies improve their social media marketing campaigns.

Where we saw chaos, we also saw opportunity.

And that’s what I see in the current crypto market.

Yes, the potential for blockchain technology is huge. Yes, investors are ready to fork over big bucks ($3.7 billion via Initial Coin Offerings in 2017). And yes, there are plenty of big thinkers who have ideas on how blockchain can help streamline financial transactions, help save the environment, make markets more efficient, and offer an unprecedented level of transparency and stability around the globe.

But just as I wondered in 1995… and just as I wondered in 2005… who’s going to do the work?

The truth is, there’s a huge demand for developers who have the blockchain chops to take on the kind of large-scale, mission critical projects that are getting funded. And there aren’t many available.

In fact, there are 14 open positions for every blockchain engineer, and over 90 percent of jobs are unfilled. This leads to some serious issues, not just in moving projects forward, but also in the quality of blockchain developers available to companies and organizations.

Already, I see coding bootcamps, claiming to make anyone a blockchain expert in a matter of days. But these programs are usually little more than diploma mills, where you pay your tuition and get “certified,” regardless of your skill level. The result is a flood of poorly-trained blockchain “experts,” who are brought onboard at sometimes astronomical salaries, only to find they’re in way over their heads.

This poses a huge threat to many of the great dreams of blockchain. Will they fade away or simply disappear, unable to become a reality simply because there weren’t enough qualified bodies available to put fingers to keyboard and get the work done?

That threat should scare anyone who’s even thinking about investing in the latest ICO.

It worries me…but I’m one for seeing opportunity.

In fact, it’s into this opportunity gap that I’ve stepped with several of my colleagues, Jason King and Moe Levin. Just as Kingsland University (formerly SMMU) did in 2009, we’re intent on bringing standardization and stability in an otherwise unsteady market. We’ve formed the Kingsland University — School of Blockchain.

Our mission is to educate the future leaders of blockchain through university-accredited training programs. Our programs inspire students to seek new knowledge, drive industry innovation, and realize the transformative power of blockchain technologies.

By standardizing the education provided to aspiring blockchain engineers, we will shape the future of the crypto industry by combining real-world expertise with research-based educational approaches. In other words, we know what we’re doing. We’ll take the learning methodologies we’ve already proven through our existing programs, and apply them to the crypto industry to ensure each student’s success — and then we’ll match our graduates with companies and organizations looking for their expertise.

Kingsland University — School of Blockchain is the world’s first and only accredited school for blockchain. We’re not just pointing out the labor pool gap; we’re stepping into that chasm with a multifaceted solution that integrates education with career placement.

As a fully operational and accredited university, Kingsland has a unique role to play in forming the future of blockchain education. We are already trusted by some of the world’s most respected organizations, and can bring that same level of quality to the blockchain industry.

Because we’ve got a strong foundation to build upon, we can support education and training in emerging blockchain-disrupted fields, such as accounting, finance and business management, supply-chain management and logistics, and insurance.

As the impacts of these disruptive technologies continue to emerge and ripple through other industries, Kingsland will be well positioned to address future needs. Wherever tomorrow takes us, we’ll be looking ahead to how we can continually evolve to meet future industry needs.

But what it needs right now is developers.

We encourage you to find out more about how Kingsland University — School of Blockchain could elevate your career or company by registering your interest on our website: www.kingslanduniversity.com

This is an updated version of a previous article.