Blockchain is becoming mainstream. For many in the crypto community, this acceptance is long overdue. However, as with any new emerging technology or industry (e.g. artificial intelligence or marijuana legalization) there remains a fair share of skeptics; those who are comfortable with the status quo and are quick to point out flaws in the system, opportunities for misuse, and the potential for the already disenfranchised to be further taken advantage of. For those of you who are cautiously optimistic and want to learn more about blockchain, we want to debunk some of the popular myths for you.

Interested in emerging technologies such as blockchain and artificial intelligence? What about environment-focused technologies related to recycling or reducing carbon emissions? If so, the MIT Enterprise Forum Startup Spotlight is happening next week in Boston and you won’t want to miss it. We’re excited Esprezzo has been selected to participate! Here’s what to expect.

By now, you’d be hard pressed to name an industry that hasn’t begun exploring the potential of blockchain technology. Increased transparency, reduced transaction costs, faster settlements, user control over data and true network decentralization — the benefits could revolutionize many industries. With cryptocurrency being the most mainstream application of blockchain technology, it may not come as a surprise that the banking and finance industry seems to be leading the way in adoption.

This past Tuesday evening we held our latest blockchain education event, The Disruptive Power of Blockchain in Business, at General Assembly’s Boston campus. While our previous events covered introductory topics such as Blockchain 101 and An Introduction to Crypto Trading, this panel discussion focused on the real world business applications of blockchain technology that are impacting traditional business processes today. Not tomorrow, not five years from now, but today.

One of our primary goals at Esprezzo is to create tools that make it less complex and time-consuming to create and manage modern web and decentralized apps. For developers, this often means getting common boilerplate code and services out of the way by relying on tested and proven implementations of things like authentication, user accounts, application structure, compiler/transpiler pipelines etc. There are tools attempting to solve these problems to various degrees by offering web frameworks with plugins, or completely serverless backend solutions that replace the database and server-side app layer with a REST API.

Our next General Assembly event is only two weeks away! Join us for The Disruptive Power of Blockchain in Business, where you'll hear industry experts in healthcare, supply chain, banking and IT talk about how blockchain technology is already transforming their businesses and what they expect to happen next.

This is Part 2 of a series on the blockchain developer job market.

In Part 1, we presented high level findings from our research on blockchain developer jobs as a result of surveying major U.S. recruiting sites. We were inspired to conduct our own research after seeing “Blockchain Developer” listed as the number one emerging occupation in LinkedIn’s 2018 U.S. Emerging Jobs Report. Quite a few people responded to Part 1 with insights and experience, and we’re excited to share insights from one of them here.

David Gadd consults with organizations regarding talent acquisition — specifically, helping them grow their in-house Blockchain teams. David didn’t agree with all our conclusions (it wouldn’t be very interesting if he did) so we reached out to have a conversation around what he’s been seeing, and are excited to report back to you with another perspective from an industry insider with their ear to the street.

If you’re in the New England area, come learn about blockchain technology and Esprezzo at these upcoming events:

In December LinkedIn published their 2018 U.S. Emerging Jobs Report and unsurprisingly (to us at least) “Blockchain Developer” was listed as the number one emerging occupation in the United States with a staggering 33x growth in 2018 alone. While this news is encouraging for anyone involved in the blockchain ecosystem, it doesn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know. In fact, it creates more questions than answers: What industries are hiring blockchain developers? Where, exactly, are these jobs? How large are the organizations hiring? What skills does a blockchain developer need to have? And what are the most popular protocols?

How do developers view blockchains and what obstacles do they face? This is a question we continuously examine through conversations with developers and business owners, as well as by consuming articles, studies, and reports. One paper we came across recently, titled Blockchain in the Eyes of Developers, was an analysis of over 10 years of questions and answers at the cross section of software development and blockchain from Stack Overflow.