A snapshot of the global blockchain ecosystem, 2019

Blockchain’s Got Talent Research by TeqAtlas: salaries, alumni, investments

Presently, Blockchain Technology and Cryptocurrencies are way beyond the level of technological curiosity. In fact, Top and respected corporations like IBM are now known to be among the top Blockchain employers. However, the massive banks now prefer to make more direct and straightforward Blockchain investments. Note that VCs have made a calculated investment of more $8.7 billion in the Blockchain companies dating back from 2014 to Q1’2019.

The truth is, it is quite hard to get in touch with people who truly understand the complexities of these systems work, given the fact that these systems are neither stable nor static. There is really limited technical know-how who are experts in this field. The ever-increasing demand for Blockchain technical know-how has resulted in a high salary scale.

Following the prediction of Gartner, A business value of about $176 billion is expected to be created by Blockchain by 2025 while it is also expected to increase to over $3 trillion by the year 2030. So, this has prompted the demand for Blockchain technical know-how to be on the rise.

TeqAtlas, a Market Intelligence Platform focused on emerging technologies, has analyzed data on 2.9k current vacancies, 807 disclosed salaries, 1.6k investors and 2.5k funding rounds – and here is what they have discovered.

From the year 2013-2018, Job opportunities have grown at 139% CAGR

With such inrush demand for one of the most sought-after technology tool, a unique style of creating new jobs will also occur. The jobs associated with this technology undergo a mind-blowing 139% CAGR growth in the last 6 years. Well, on Angel.co, more than 2000 job opportunities have been listed and made available by the end of Q1’2019, following the job opportunity history on Angel.co, that’s almost the same number and amount of the opportunities listed in the whole of 2018.

A salary scale of $81k-$144k is available for Blockchain experts

In addition, the salary scale for jobs related to Blockchain ranges from $17k to $271k per year, according to Glassdoor. In fact, it was stated that the largest part of the job offers a salary scale of between $81k to $144k per year.

The US average salary is 2X lesser in value than the average Blockchain salary

The United States is regarded as the home of the highest paying jobs that are related to Blockchain. Following cryptocurrencyjobs.co, the average salary for jobs related to Blockchain is over $100k per year in the United States. This is about $57k (or 117%) more than the typical USA average salary.

Blockchain job opportunities are led by IBM

IBM has several times been reported as the main and dominant force, which drives Blockchain initiatives. A lot is involved but the well-known includes, IBM Blockchain Trusted Identity, IBM Blockchain for Trade Finance, IBM Blockchain World Wire, IBM Food Trust, TradeLens. Following the information on IBM’s website, over 330 job opportunities were available for in the month of March. It was even found out that, among non-technological oriented companies included in the top-10 Blockchain recruiters, there are Big Four accounting companies.

London is leading the charge

Currently, London is the top city in the world as regards job opportunities related to Blockchain. The city provides 26% of the total worldwide vacancies. In the United States, New York, and San Francisco occupies 19% and 13% accordingly, making them the leading cities in North America.

Successfully Blockchain Startups have been possible by Stanford alumni

In comes at no surprise that American universities are also involved in the development of Blockchain. In fact, almost half of the alumni who head 18 companies that deliver significant funding in the development of Blockchain are from American Universities. In 3 recognized CEOs have an alumnus of Stanford.

Blockchain developers are in more demand than the other positions in the industry

According to the statistics on Glassdoor, the Blockchain software engineers are the most sought after job opening with over 680 job opportunities out of almost 3000 in total.

Communication software gets the largest average deal amount per company

The leader in terms of the total invested amount happens to be the FinTech industry. PwC survey indicates that FinTech also leads in terms of the number of backed companies. However, the communication software industry claims the lion share of the deal amount per company only due to the Telegram’s TGE ($1.7 billion) and Kik’s deals (TGE, Series A-D) that secured $217 million.

Blockchain companies have caught the interest of over 800 VC firms

The total number of deals they were involved in was dominated by DCG. In fact, 21 deals ahead of Pantera Capital and Blockchain Capital combined. The United States serves as a harbor to 8 out of 10 investors. Not ignoring the fact that over 50% of those who invested in Blockchain are Venture Capital firms.

Angel/Seed rounds are a playing ground for most active and vibrant investors

The most active investors mainly participate in the Angel and Seed conventional rounds, which points out the prevalence of the conventional funding instruments. The exception is TaaS, which is inactive – their entire portfolio consists of TGEs.

A significant part of the investors focused on FinTech Blockchain startups

A large part of the most active investors is interested in the FinTech sector, which is also leading in terms of backed capital. The investors are willing to back the companies with significant amounts, and it is clear that they treat FinTech as a serious investment and not just a side project to diversify the portfolio.

A lot of bets are placed on Blockchain technology by the biggest banks

The largest Blockchain deal banks have ever participated in happens to be R3, which is around $107 million. Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ was the only bank among the ones mentioned in the chart below that didn’t participate in R3. They opted for R3’s project Corda Enterprise. While the inception of R3 investment was about to take place, over 35 investment banks were said to participate in the funding process. Based in New York, R3 is a firm that leads a consortium of over 300 firms to build and use Blockchain technology.

 

The upward trend associated with recently Established Blockchain firms

The Blockchain market becomes more competitive. More than 600 blockchain companies were founded all over the world in 2017. Even though this number dropped last year, there is a positive trend with over 275 new companies founded in 2018 compared to 213 established two years ago.

Conclusions

It’s no news that when it comes to Blockchain-related talents, the United States is outright top leaders. Well, over 50% of investors that have shown interest in the Blockchain technology are venture capital firms. Although, Europe hasn’t been lagging behind as they tend to create more job opportunities and also make provision for reasonable average salaries compared to the United States. Multinational corporations have helped in making job opportunities more lucrative by regularly employing Blockchain developers. FinTech industry still stands as the most elevated level of Blockchain adoption. The non-technological companies which occupy positions in the top ten include PwC, EY, KPMG.

Read the full Blockchain’s Got Talent Research by TeqAtlas here.

About TeqAtlas

TeqAtlas is the Market Intelligence Provider that drives and eases scouting of emerging technologies for SMEs. Our goal is to encourage tech professionals all over the world to adopt modern solutions and wide-spread digitalization.

TeqAtlas Analytics & Research provides a knowledge base for tech pioneers.

Products & Services database helps find vendors for any job.

Investment Opportunities provides the data you need preparing for the next funding round, benchmarking your company against competitors and looking for the lead investor.

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