There are countless potential Bitcoin jobs – Bitcoin Magazine
This is an opinion editorial by Peter Conley, a product champion at Vercel and a contributor to Bitcoin Magazine.
How Big Can Bitcoin Jobs, Infrastructure, and Opportunities Get as a Whole? Not “crypto” as a whole – just Bitcoin.
The Bitcoin network is growing at the same pace as the internet.
We are well aware of the size of the “money value” this network has. At the time of writing, bitcoin has a global market value of around $445 billion. What about the size of “employment value” it can produce?
In 1999, the job title iOS engineer did not exist. If you do a basic search on LinkedIn, you’ll find over 33,000 open roles with that title alone. These are open job positions, not the number of people already employed in that position. In 2002, frontend React developer jobs didn’t exist. On LinkedIn you will find over 47,000 open roles at the time of writing. Same with “AWS Engineer” – non-existent in 2004. Now? 203,000 vacancies. See where I’m going with this?
A similar trend is happening in the Bitcoin space. In 2013, positions for Bitcoin Mining and Wallet Communications, Lightning Infrastructure Engineer, and Bitcoin Mining Manager did not exist. Not one. Now there are dozens if not hundreds of these types of positions available.
What will these opportunities look like in 2038? Will the LinkedIn (or equivalent) search for “Lightning engineer” return more than 10,000 results?
Breaking down Bitcoin sub-sectors and potential Bitcoin career paths
Let’s explore the current sub-sectors of Bitcoin to lay out existing and future opportunities:
Bitcoin education
We are still early. If Bitcoin is the internet, it’s 1997. People will demand useful educational content to understand bitcoin’s meaning and how to buy it, trade it, store it, and trade it.
Remember the 1990s, when people tried to explain to you how important the internet will be? Remember when major news anchors didn’t know what email was? Remember when Dave Letterman laughed in Bill Gates’ face when he tried to explain the importance of the internet?
We’re in the same exact place on the timeline if you map Bitcoin to the internet – it’s practically the same story. Because of this, there will be a market need for good communicators to inform the public about bitcoin’s importance.
Some of my personal favorite teachers in the room are: Robert Breedlove, Lyn AldenMichael Saylor, Natalie Brunell and Jeff Booth.
Bitcoin Mining Works
Examples of mining companies are Cathedra, Marathon and Compass Mining. Currently, the bitcoin mining sector has the most public companies and the largest measurable market capitalization compared to other types of Bitcoin companies.
Bitcoin mining could potentially be the largest sub-segment, both in terms of market capitalization and number of employees, simply because the bitcoin mining process needs a large amount of physical infrastructure and capital expenditure.
Bitcoin Engineering Jobs
Inventions we cannot predict will be made on top of the Bitcoin protocol. Were the engineers at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency ever able to predict e-commerce or online dating when they first invented the Internet? Was Alan Turing ever able to predict smartphones after he created the world’s first computer? Now look at how many innovations were built on top of these core breakthroughs.
I don’t think Satoshi Nakamoto ever mentioned in 2009 concepts like seed sentences, multi-signature wallets and the Lightning Network, but here we are.
The possibilities are endless here. If you can dream it and code it, you can make it happen.
Bitcoin Mining Pools
In addition to bitcoin mining companies, there are completely separate “mining pool” companies, such as Foundry. This can be a whole sub-sector in itself. Mining pools are similar to financial services companies and process efficiency companies to the miners. Mining pools reduce the risk of the variable rewards from the mining process and allow more participants in the network to have stable stake flow.
Bitcoin Exchange Jobs
The need to convert USD to BTC will always exist until the fiat currencies completely collapse. This is where bitcoin exchange comes in.
Exchanges were some of the first – and now the richest – bitcoin companies. Examples are Kraken (started in 2011) and Coinbase (started in 2012). Most of them have since moved on to offer cryptocurrencies at large, but there are exceptions: Swan Bitcoin is a bitcoin-only exchange. Expect this space to expand as more altcoins like Terra/LUNA begin to implode.
Jobs for Bitcoin Software Wallet
The extent to which bitcoin wallets will be embedded into nearly every user interface (both physical and digital) will be mind-boggling. They will be as ubiquitous as email addresses or credit card submission forms. Every machine and website that accepts cash, credit cards, wire transfers and PayPal will be supplemented – if not completely replaced – by bitcoin wallets.
You also need several types of wallets. One as a quasi-checking account (hot wallet) and another as a savings account (cold storage). There will be a need to implement these wallets in existing businesses, and there will be a need for training on how to trade with the Lightning Network, how to manage a hot wallet and a cold storage wallet, and how to calculate tax events.
Bitcoin managers
Administrators help users keep a backup key for multi-signature wallets. They even have services that specialize in this service for institutions, not just individuals. Two of the biggest players in this area are Casa and Unchained Capital.
Bitcoin hardware wallets
You’ve probably heard of the hardware wallets Ledger and Trezor, but have you heard of ColdCard? ColdCard specializes as a bitcoin-only hardware wallet.
Expect the hardware wallet space to become more creative and inventive. We have only just begun to scratch the surface as we approach cold storage.
Bitcoin Node Producers
Bitcoin nodes are the specialized hard drives that host the ledger of all bitcoin transactions dating back to the first block in January 2009. There are several companies that make and sell these specialized mini servers. Some include Nodl, RoninDojo and The Bitcoin Machine.
As the market value of bitcoin grows, more people want skin in the game which leads to more people wanting to decentralize and protect the network.
Bitcoin physical products
The sky is the limit for physical bitcoin products. Opendime is a good example.
Other examples include BLOCKCLOCK by Coinkite. Then there are steel-based key backup devices like Codl’s Punchplate or CypherWheel from CypherSafe.
Bitcoin “Bridge” Services
Professional services will not disappear, they will just shift to the bitcoin standard. People will still need personal help to transition to the financial system like bitcoin cold storage advice.
New roads are new business opportunities. A good example would be the mortgage market. Are you bitcoin rich but asset poor and trying to get a mortgage? Look no further than Hoseki, a new technology to prove your holdings without giving up custody.
As new needs emerge, more and more business solutions and full-time job opportunities will emerge to help others onboard to the Bitcoin network.
This is a guest post by Peter Conley. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of BTC Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.
