50, Make That 72

Facebook’s in-house blockchain division has purportedly doubled-down on its search for talent in the budding crypto ecosystem, in spite of the collapse in the Bitcoin price.

According to a report from The Next Web’s Hard Fork column, the crypto-friendly arm of the technology giant currently has two dozen job offers open on Facebook’s official careers portal. While it would be illogical to list all the roles, here are a few: two Product Managers, a Finance Analyst, a Data Scientist, a Threat Investigator, and here’s an interesting one, a Director of Technical Account and Securities and Exchange Commission Reporting. All roles are either based in the firm’s Menlo Park headquarters, in a Washington D.C. office, or another location in Tel Aviv.

The outlet speculates that the division, headed by PayPal’s David Marcus, Instagram executives, and others with a penchant for innovation, is focused on marketing, UX, design, software engineering, and legal compliance, potentially hinting at an all-encompassing blockchain offering. But could it really be the company’s in-house crypto asset, the so-called FBCoin or Facecoin.

Facebook Coin?

While intial reports suggested that the company was looking to blockchainify some of its facets, hearsay suggested that Facebook is looking deep into launching its own cryptocurrency.

For those who missed the memo, sources speaking to Bloomberg explain that the cryptocurrency will be transferred directly through WhatsApp as a way to transact value globally to oust the often expensive remittance market.

And with its launch purportedly being on the horizon, with the New York Times reporting that the branch has been in touch with crypto exchanges, this recent hiring spree might have a lot to do with this specific venture.

It would make sense. After all, stablecoins were recently revealed to be potentially under the SEC’s jurisdiction, so the recent hire of a director for reporting might be a way to mitigate regulator risks.

Legacy Institutions Look To Delve Into Crypto

This comes as some of the world’s largest institutions have quietly hired (or put out offers to hire) talents in this space.

In a job posting recently pinned to SmartRecruiters, it was revealed that Visa is looking for a “technical product manager.” This, of course, doesn’t scream “crypto” or “blockchain,” but the job description sure does. For this position, the multinational payment processing giant is looking for a product manager for its Visa Crypto team, based in Palo Alto. Said individual will need to “possess significant functional knowledge of the cryptocurrency ecosystem,” with a preferred familiarity of cryptography.

It was also explained that the company is looking for someone that has a “deep understanding of existing retail payment solutions,” hinting that Visa could be looking into integration blockchain technologies into its payment rails.

Citigroup, a New York-based financial services organization, is looking into hiring a blockchain talent. A LinkedIn job listing recent explained that the Citi Markets and Securities Services division of the institution is looking into “Blockchain/ Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) and Digital Asset initiatives.” This comes after it purportedly dropped plans for a Citicoin.

Photo by Tim Bennett on Unsplash