Even amid the so-called “crypto winter” which may be turning around as of today, blockchain has seen rapid growth as an industry, viewed as exciting and innovative by many onlookers.

In fact, Blockchain is the biggest growing sector on all of LinkedIn which has a staggering 500 million users. Blockchain and P2P ledger development grew over twice as much as the second biggest category in terms of growth, Machine Learning.

New York Demands Developers

New York is seeing strong demand for blockchain developers, as are San Francisco and Atlanta, with the skills required listed as knowledge in Node.js, cryptocurrency, blockchain, solidity, and Ethereum.

LinkedIn Chief Economist Guy Berger said

“It’s no surprise that we’re seeing an explosion of machine learning roles and continuing growth of data science roles. In fact, we started to see glimmers of this in last year’s report; however, both fields are starting to see more specialized roles emerge. It also may not shock you that Blockchain Developer is topping the list following this year’s surge in interest around blockchain and cryptocurrency.”

In the United States, blockchain engineers are earning a hefty salary on par with AI specialists, with the average pay between $150,000 and $175,000 a year.

Mass Layoffs and Demand Slowdown

On the other hand, the decline in the value of cryptocurrencies has certainly made its mark, with major companies like ConsenSys and Steemit laying off huge amounts of staff and cutting services.

ConsenSys founder Joe Lubin stated that the company would be streamlining certain services and sub-companies as well as laying off 13% of all staff members including high-ranking executives, while the situation at Steemit was even worse – 70% of staff are due to be laid off due to the plunge in STEEM crypto and the cost of running masternodes.

What’s more, the market cap has led to a decreased interest in blockchain jobs and lesser availability of jobs in general. CCN recently reported:

“If you look at data from the year prior, October 2016 to October 2017, job seeker interest for roles related to bitcoin, blockchain, and cryptocurrency rose by 481.61%, while employer interest for roles related to the same terms rose 325%.

This contrasted sharply with employer interest in crypto-related roles only increasing by 25.49% between October 2017 and October 2018. During the same period job seeker interest fell by 3.06%.”

The Sector is Growing

This seems contradictory to the earlier information, but it isn’t. It’s true that demand has slowed down from last year during the manic boom in cryptocurrencies. However, blockchain and crypto are here to stay, and the data proves it.

While slower than last year, demand for blockchain labor is still rising at a sustainable rate. Turbulence in the space has led to layoffs in some companies, but others are hiring large labor forces to continue innovating.

Barry Silbert recently sent out the following tweet pointing out that one particular company was hiring 40 new staff members:

Luno has over 40 open jobs they’re looking to fill. What crypto winter?!? https://t.co/h5KMZf2QrE — Barry Silbert (@barrysilbert) December 13, 2018

Meanwhile, 20% of all activity on Angel Lists, a popular startup jobs board, is related to crypto/blockchain startups. Blockchain is attracting people from finance, marketing, and web development on a massive scale, with many stories of Wall Street executives (such as DASH founder Ryan Taylor) jumping ship for blockchain instead.

As more and more bright minds flock to the space, once can’t help but feel that something monumental is brewing. Much like the dot com boom in ’95, we know that many of these companies won’t make it – we also know that already, somewhere out there, are teams of people working on killer solutions that will change the world forever.

I, for one, can’t wait to find out what they are.

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Interested in more crypto content? Check out As Tether dominance declines, new players emerge and Why are Bitcoin Miners Shorting Bitcoin?