Data interprets the US blockchain job market: California and New York are the blockchain capitals on the east and west coasts

Despite the hype surrounding Bitcoin, blockchain itself is a thriving sector in the tech industry, and the demand for blockchain skills remains as high as ever.

In fact, in response to such high demand for blockchain professionals, Morgan Creek Digital’s Anthony Pompliano just launched a new blockchain industry job site in partnership with Coinbase, Gemini, and others.

As of writing, there are more than 300 jobs listed on the site. Pompliano said he hopes to have 10,000 jobs listed on the site by the end of 2021. So far, though, the jobs listed on the site only scratch the surface of demand in the U.S. blockchain industry.

To better understand the job market, we analyzed job postings on Indeed.com, one of the largest job sites in the U.S. We found that more than 3,000 job postings included the word “blockchain,” some of which were technical positions responsible for developing blockchain applications, and some were non-technical positions within blockchain companies, such as marketing and HR personnel.

So where are all these blockchain jobs located? When we looked at the job postings by state, we found some surprising findings. California and New York are clearly the blockchain capitals on the East and West Coasts, while Texas and Illinois offer blockchain opportunities in the Southwest and Midwest, respectively. When we dug deeper into the data, we found some even more surprising trends.

But first, a few words about the data for this study. On Indeed.com, job search results are displayed based on geographic proximity. For example, if you search for blockchain jobs in New York City, the results that appear will include jobs in neighboring New Jersey. Since we sampled all jobs displayed in each location, some jobs may be counted twice. In addition, as of January 25, 2021, the same remote job is included in the search results in every state on the Indeed page. This also explains why there is no state with 0 open jobs on the Indeed map.

Regardless, when we analyze the data in more detail, we find some more interesting results. For example, while the raw job openings data isn’t surprising, if we analyze the number of blockchain job openings per capita in each state based on the estimated population in 2020, we find some interesting hot spots.

For example, Utah and Massachusetts both have relatively high numbers of open blockchain jobs per capita.

Even more outrageous, though, is Washington, D.C. Although it’s too small to be mapped, D.C. has ten times more blockchain jobs per capita than the nearest state. This is in part thanks to Washington’s regulatory, legal, and lobbyist roles, which provide quick access to government figures and regulatory organizations. For example, Coinbase is currently hiring a deputy general counsel to work in Washington, D.C., to lobby the Treasury and Justice Departments.

When we zoom in further and break it down by city, we can also see some areas of outstanding growth. It should be noted that in the map below, we only list cities with at least 8 blockchain job vacancies.

For example, while the Bay Area is clearly the blockchain capital of the California region, there is also a sizable blockchain job market developing in Southern California. Jobs in Texas are primarily concentrated in Houston, but Austin also has dozens of blockchain job opportunities.

On the other hand, while New York is undoubtedly the center of the blockchain universe on the East Coast, North Carolina and Georgia are also emerging as new hotbeds.

This data is limited to open job openings posted on Indeed. Since many companies post job openings on other platforms, there may be more real blockchain job openings in these regions. Of course, the blockchain field also provides many remote work opportunities.

Long story short, although the pandemic has had a terrible impact on employment in the United States, there are still many blockchain jobs waiting to be filled in many unexpected places! (LongHash)