Brian Nibley

John Gilbert

<div id="highlights-block_62f40e403f915" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>In July, LinkedIn reported a 5.4% drop in national hiring and an additional 1.5% drop in their August report</li>
 <li>Even though this signals that tighter financial conditions are hitting the labor market, it doesn’t imply that the appetite for crypto finance talent is gone</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



The experts at <a href="https://www.polysign.io/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">PolySign</a> and its affiliated companies told Blockworks the demand for finance talent is here to stay. The digital asset fintech company has a unique perspective on this trend because it recently acquired <a href="https://www.mgstover.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">MG Stover</a>, a full-service fund administrator.&nbsp;



When asked if this demand is connected to an institutional &#8220;buy the dip&#8221; moment, Matt Stone, recruiting manager at PolySign and MG Stover, said it stems from more of a &#8220;buckle up and build&#8221; mindset. They know that even though institutional interest is growing, digital asset infrastructure needs builders regardless.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Crypto funds need skilled financial professionals</h3>



Just a few months ago, the labor market was in a worker shortage. And when it came to crypto, Gary Newlin, senior director of business development, said that &#8220;the talent acquisition was really challenging. Very few people had the breadth of knowledge of digital assets, plus accounting and/or finance. Even though hiring is down from all time highs and there is news about layoffs, these limitations in the talent pool still exist.&#8221;



&#8220;A lot of the problem comes down to that ­— there are just too few individuals with the right skills who also understand crypto. Newlin explained that &#8220;when you think of traditional finance (stocks, bonds, commodities), there are professionals that understand accounting, reporting, compliance and record-keeping. It is an extremely limited pool when applying those same principles to digital assets.”



Learn more: <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/mg-stovers-top-3-digital-asset-trends/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The Top 3 Trends in Private Funds That Deal in Digital Assets</a>



Recruiters like Matt Stone have first-hand experience with this finance talent shortage. He competes with fund administrators in both crypto and traditional finance. And he attests to the fact that the pool of experienced talent interested in transitioning to or already in digital assets is still small. And while he recognizes that the potential of a recession may offer him a reprieve, any break will be short lived.&nbsp;



Pat Clancy, head of digital asset strategy at PolySign, offered more insight into the macro forces at play. He explained that &#8220;in the previous cycle, everyone got easy access to cash due to frothy valuations and accelerated funding. As a result, digital asset managers and portfolio companies tried to ramp up and scale very quickly. This created an accounting nightmare.&#8221;



In addition to clients looking to execute a market entry strategy, some administrative challenges still need to be untangled from the previous cycle. As Pat put it, &#8220;Funds are deploying capital to solve data integrity and compliance issues.&#8221; 



The need for savvy fund administrators like MG Stover has never been greater, but they also need finance talent that is fluent in investment funds and digital asset technology. Clancy gave a relay race analogy: “Funds are looking for the talent that can hand the relay baton to us.” They need people who can speak the same language as the service providers for full accounting compliance.&nbsp;



But talent isn’t the only challenge on this front. Digital asset accounting needs data standardization across the board. For example, exchanges don’t all use the same tickers on their platforms. This creates a major headache for accountants, regardless of their crypto expertise.



Learn more: <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/the-importance-of-data-and-standardization-in-digital-assets/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The Importance of Data and Standardization Within Digital Assets</a>



Fortunately, some groundbreaking firms are establishing new practices and working to educate professionals. According to Josiah Reich, senior director of hedge fund client services, &#8220;We feel like we pave the way for best practices in the industry. So, we&#8217;re teaching traditional finance people how to account for a digital asset as an investable asset class. Everything that we do for our crypto funds and traditional long/short equity, we&#8217;re applying those same principles to a crypto hedge fund.&#8221;



In fact, MG Stover is taking a significant role in creating new crypto talent by hiring &#8220;apprentices&#8221; in the industry. Rather than wait for talent to arrive, the team takes a proactive role in helping individuals gain the necessary skills and knowledge. Matt Stover, <a href="https://www.mgstover.com/about" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">founder and CEO of MG Stover</a>, said that &#8220;another way we&#8217;re attracting talent to the firm is through a crypto apprenticeship of sorts. We want to promote and recruit people for two or three years and then help them find opportunities with our clients — some of the most sought-after jobs in crypto finance.”



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">From humble tech beginnings to the burgeoning financial industry</h3>



Matt noted that digital assets began with cryptographic computer engineers that had a vision of building technology that very few people understood. Therefore, it&#8217;s not surprising that people with the right skills and knowledge are hard to come by. As Matt put it, &#8220;There is still a large knowledge gap as a lot of this started with crypto enthusiasts. Blockchain developers were able to pick it up quickly, but the accounting and finance community had a longer learning curve.&#8221;



&#8220;MG Stover is focused on training the traditional finance professionals that want to be part of the fastest growing asset class in our generation. Our goal is to push the asset class in the right direction and hopefully accelerate career growth for the individuals participating in the digital asset ecosystem.”&nbsp;



Of course, this is changing, albeit slowly. As more and more people begin to understand crypto and recognize the relevant career opportunities, hopefully, there will come a time when education and workforce trends swing in the corresponding direction.



Matt Stone hinted at this when he said &#8220;graduates in finance and accounting aren&#8217;t leaving their business programs with a focus in crypto. I think more and younger people want to get exposure, and they&#8217;re investing in it. They&#8217;re not thinking of it as a career opportunity, but there are legitimate career opportunities in the digital asset private fund space.&#8221;



This content is sponsored by <a href="https://www.polysign.io/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">PolySign</a>.



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hiring

What Crypto Winter? The Demand for Finance Talent is Booming

Ben Strack

<div id="highlights-block_62f3e6182c57a" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>The fastest growing blockchain roles are quality assurance analysts, cryptologic technicians and compliance specialists</li>
 <li>CEO of The Crypto Recruiters said developers are constantly in high demand, though many have “gone incognito”</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



The supply of engineering and information technology talent within the blockchain industry is not meeting demand.



Maturing digital asset markets have shifted company needs to technical roles — especially when it comes to security — according to a new study by <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/latest-in-crypto-hiring-okx-bitget-among-companies-boosting-headcount/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">crypto exchange OKX</a> and LinkedIn.



Finance talent accounts for 19% of blockchain-oriented employees, the report found. Engineers, meanwhile, make up 16%. And business development, information technology and sales staffers make up about 6% each.



<a href="https://www.okx.com/academy/en/global-blockchain-industry-talent-insights-okx-linkedin-report" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The analysis</a> includes research data samples from LinkedIn covering 180 countries from January 2019 to January 2022.  



The most sought-after jobs are crypto traders, software engineers, analysts, support analysts and account managers — which tend to come with relatively higher compensation.&nbsp;&nbsp;



But the finance category ranked sixth in terms of hiring demand, as of June, according to LinkedIn job postings. Instead, people in the engineering and informational technology fields are most coveted as companies are building out blockchain capabilities, followed by professionals in product management, marketing and human resources.&nbsp;&nbsp;



The study examined both crypto-native companies and traditional entities vying to establish a foothold in digital assets.



The fastest-growing title was for a “quality assurance analyst,” which had a growth rate of 713% from June 2021 to June 2022. Cryptologic technician and compliance specialists ranked second and third, growing by 350% and 253%, respectively, over that span.



“The blockchain industry is transitioning from being highly financial to being highly technical in nature,” the report said. “It will fully utilize the combination of technical and financial attributes of blockchain to gradually develop into an important part of the digital economy.”



Emily Landon, ​​CEO of <a href="https://www.thecryptorecruiters.io/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The Crypto Recruiters</a>, told Blockworks her firm is seeing a lot of requests for marketing, investor relations and developer roles — including front-end developers, as well as those well-versed in programming languages Rust and Solidity.



But finding technical talent has become increasingly difficult as candidates aren’t always marketing themselves well on LinkedIn, she added. Others have deleted their LinkedIn accounts due to spam from recruiters, Landon said, flocking to Twitter and Discord instead.&nbsp;&nbsp;



“It makes it challenging to find them on those platforms,” Landon said. “Basically, these developers have gone incognito.”



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Other numbers at a glance</h3>



LinkedIn data show the total number of the platform’s members working in the blockchain industry grew by 76% year over year through June. The US has the most people working in the space, followed by India and China.&nbsp;



In terms of job postings, blockchain-related talent demand is most concentrated in the United States, China, France, India and Germany.



The average tenure of global blockchain talent is 1.2 years, according to the report. Aside from the influx of people from financial and technology companies into the space, the industry’s flow of talent is primarily from within the segment.



Despite the year-over-year growth, overall, <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/meet-the-women-looking-to-make-the-metaverse-more-inclusive/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">female talent remains scarce</a>. The segment has about four times more men than women, according to the report.



“[We’ve had] an incredibly hard time especially finding women in the space,” Landon said. “We want to help more women get into technical roles.”



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There’s a Shortage of Tech (And Female) Crypto Talent: Report

Morgan Chittum

<div id="highlights-block_61d8aeffcdb02" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>“We fundamentally believe that in the distant future, everybody will become a crypto person,” Meritverse co-founder Jacob Claerhout said </li>
 <li>To make a profile on Meritverse, users must put in their wallet address or ENS to ensure authenticity and proof that they’ve worked on certain projects </li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Meritverse, advertised as the “professional network of the metaverse,” launched on Thursday, aiming to become a more crypto-friendly LinkedIn, co-founders Jacob Claerhout and Boris Gordts told Blockworks.&nbsp;



“Basically, the product we&#8217;re trying to build is sort of a Google Maps for Web3 that makes it easy to navigate this new era [of the internet],” Gordts said.



To make a profile on Meritverse, users must put in their wallet address or Ethereum name service (ENS) to ensure authenticity and proof that they’ve worked on certain projects. Profiles display a users’ connections, decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) they’ve contributed to and their participation in various crypto communities.&nbsp;



“[Similar to] LinkedIn, you are able to see where someone has worked before or who they know. People should be able to map out those relationships in order for collaboration [and] hiring to go a lot easier,” Claerhout said.&nbsp;



However, Meritverse has an edge over LinkedIn because users can ensure their work experience on-chain while centralized networks do not have this capability yet, according to Claerhout.&nbsp;



“We allow people, in a verifiable way, to showcase who they are as a professional, their talents and their skills,” Claerhout said.&nbsp;&nbsp;



The platform, which just launched on <a href="http://producthunt.com" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Product Hunt</a>, comes with rising interest and engagement with DAOs. There are over 180 DAOs with $10.3 billion in assets under management (AUM) and nearly 2 million contributors, according to data from <a href="https://deepdao.io/#/deepdao/dashboard" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">DeepDAO</a>.



DAOs are a new governance structure made possible through the internet and cryptocurrencies. Think of a DAO as an online community with a shared bank account, a group chat and often a mission statement.&nbsp;



<a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/constitutiondao-shutting-down-after-raising-49m/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">ConstitutionDAO</a> raised $48.9 million from over 17,000 investors, in an effort to buy a copy of the US Constitution from Sotheby’s Auction House in November. Members of the DAO were given governance tokens for contributing to its fund, giving each person a vote on what would happen with the historic document.&nbsp;



Although the group ultimately lost the bid to hedge fund billionaire Kenneth Griffin, the ConstitutionDAO put the concept of decentralized governance structures briefly in the limelight.&nbsp;



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“Our thesis is basically that these DAO workers or people contributing to DAOs are living the future of work. We believe that if we build a product for them the rest of the world will get in, and will catch up in the next 15 years,” Gordts said.&nbsp;</blockquote>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">‘The highs and lows’</h3>



Meritverse’s co-founders previously made <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/fantasy-startup-investing-nft-marketplace-shutdown-a-day-into-beta-launch-heres-why/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">headlines</a> after their first startup together shut down less than 24 hours into its beta launch last year.&nbsp;



Visionrare, self-branded as a “fantasy startup investing game,” allowed users to buy synthetic shares— in <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/the-investors-guide-to-nfts/">NFT</a> form — of startups players believed would be fiscally successful. The project received criticism over whether their core product offering was legal, many questioning if its shares were considered securities.&nbsp;



Visionrare later said they “underestimated the legal complexities” of the project once they launched, according to a <a href="https://app.visionrare.com/dealflow" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">statement</a> by the company. Claerhout said the decision to close Visionrare “wasn’t an easy decision, [but] it was also not a major decision.”&nbsp;



“We did get it more press attention than maybe we should in the sense that we were a two-month-old project,” he said. “It’s obviously a huge privilege to build in public and to become part of the global discussion.”



“The main thing we learned [from Visionrare] was that we&#8217;re a great team. We can build and ship things fast. We move fast and sometimes break things. But we learned that we love working together through the highs and the lows,” Claerhout said.



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