It seems that many traditional firms are also searching for staff. The US’s largest bank, JP Morgan (with assets of $3.2 trillion), is looking to hire staff in its Blockchain subsidiary, Onyx, which was launched back in October 2020. According to posts on LinkedIn, JP Morgan is looking for people in its auditing, marketing and engineering departments. It was not even a year ago that JP Morgan sold off its Blockchain busines, Quorum, to ConsenSys. This was followed, in April 2021, with JP Morgan along with Mastercard, UBS and other investors being part of a $65million fund raiser for Consensys. Visa recently reported that it had increased the number of “crypto partnerships” by 43% in these last four months to date as interest in cryptos continues to grow. Off the back of this, Visa is also looking to recruit more staff. Amazon is presently looking for a head of crypto payments on its website: “ You will leverage your domain expertise in Blockchain, Distributed Ledger, Central Bank Digital Currencies and Cryptocurrency to develop the case for the capabilities which should be developed, drive overall vision and product strategy, and gain leadership buy-in and investment for new capabilities”. Does this mean Amazon, as a company, is looking to invest in cryptocurrencies or start accepting cryptos as payment for goods? Binance has been searching for 350 staff globally with Zhao, its CEO, reporting to Bloomberg that: "We are hiring aggressively. We see the industry growing exponentially on a year-to-year basis, and we need to scale our team to cope with it." Furthermore, in the legal world it would seem that Tech Crunch’s headline, “the NFT craze will be a boon for lawyers”, appears to have been spot on. Specialist NFT lawyers have been inundated with new business enquiries from companies looking for regulatory and legal advice as they search how best to monetise their IP with NFTs. Charlie Kerrigan, partner at the law firm CMS, has recently commented: “NFTs are unusual because there has been such a strong uptake in a short time. We work with crypto firms and with sports, entertainment and other media firms and the level of interest and ingenuity were seeing is mindboggling. The projects are a good example of the skills modern lawyers require since they mix technical issues of regulation, IP and data alongside commercial advice, negotiation and project management. We have to listen well and be on our toes!” 

Many people in the past have complained that Blockchain and the digital assets it creates was simply ‘smoke and mirrors’ - in fact, the reality is totally different. Certainly, the above examples all clearly demonstrate a demand for those employees who can help firms ‘build-out’ their Blockchain plans. The cyberpunks who aspired to help the world’s 1.7 billion unbanked and by-pass the banks, regulators and stock markets have given way to quoted global multinationals and governments. Often well-known brands and long-established firms have realised that whilst they are not keen on crypto trading, the technology which underlines these digital assets (i.e., Blockchain) is able to address the real business challenges faced by both their customers, and themselves.

Furthermore, according to a 2020 American Productivity & Quality Center (APQC) survey of supply chain professionals, one of the biggest challenges when engaging with Blockchain technology solutions is finding staff with the right skill set. Well, it looks like this challenge is increasing, hence the demand for more education and practical help as opposed to the evangelical rantings claiming that Blockchains are a ‘silver bullet’! 

Top 5 Blockchain challenges

Effect of saving $50 per month for three years

Source: dtca

The other golden rule of investing is diversification - e.g., not having all your ‘eggs in one basket’ - which is why many investors will have exposure to different investments such as equities, property, bonds, commodities. One digital asset to catch the eye is from Damien Hirst and he has enrolled, no less, the ex-Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, to help promote his latest Non-Fungible Token (NFT) collection. Hirst has created 10,000 physical unique works on A4 sheets of paper called “The Currency”, with each being available to be bought as an NFT and having gone on sale on the 14th July for $2,000 each. Therefore, if Hirst sells all 10,000 he will raise $20million on top of the $22million he made from selling 7,481 prints earlier this year. 

The Currency - Damien Hirst

Source: FT

There is a twist, though, with Hirst’s latest NFTs in his press release: “Two months after the NFTs are allocated, collectors will be presented with a choice: to keep the NFT or exchange it for the physical artwork. They will have one year, until 3pm BST on 27th July 2022 to decide to keep either the digital NFT or the physical artwork. If they have not exchanged their NFT in that period, the physical artwork will be destroyed. Similarly, if they have exchanged it in that period, the NFT will be destroyed” 

As an aside, does Carney’s engagement in helping promote Hirst’s ‘The Currency’ portend the ex-Governor of the Bank of England’s as a supporter of Digital Currencies, in particular CBDCs? 

(NB: Readers are recommended to seek professional advice before taking any action based on any of the links and information above. TeamBlockchain Ltd does not accept responsibility for any action that may or may not be taken, loss or gain. Please remember that the value of investments (particularly Bitcoin) and illiquid ones (such as NFT)s can rise and fall dramatically.)