How to Close the Talent Gap
in the Blockchain Industry
Jamil Hasan is an author, business
advisor, and blockchain strategist.
He has over 20 years of experience
building databases and
data-driven organizations at Fortune
100 companies, including AIG,
Prudential Financial, XL Caitlin,
and Ingersoll Rand. His recent
book Blockchain Ethics: A Bridge to
Abundance hit #1 on Amazon Kindle’s
best-seller list.
© Business Expert Press 978-1-94944-331-8 (2019) Expert Insights
www.businessexpertpress.com
Jamil Hasan
www.jamilhasan.com
Abstract: The blockchain technology industry is grow-
ing rapidly while the cryptocurrency startup space is
very much the Wild West. To succeed and grow as a
blockchain company and avoid the pitfalls inherent in
any young industry, it is critical that a company attracts
qualified and enthusiastic talent. Closing the talent gap
is paramount to long-term blockchain industry sustain-
ability. This article discusses some of the current block-
chain industry issues and how to close the talent gap,
putting both college graduates and experienced profes-
sionals to work.
Keywords: Bitcoin; blockchain; career; cryptocurrency;
initial coin offering; token
Laying the Foundation
A recent article in Bitcoin.com News (BTC.com 2018)
discusses the polarizing trend for traditional banks to
freeze bank accounts of those individuals engaged in
cryptocurrency.
One local bank explained they no longer wish to do
business with “these people” — those with a bank account
tied to a cryptocurrency account — as there is a possibil-
ity for money laundering or other illegal behavior. The
myths around “cryptocurrency” need to be debunked.
Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer transactional blockchain ori-
ginally designed to prevent the possibility of mortgage-
backed securities speculation that occurred from the
years 2006 through 2008 from ever happening again.
What started out as a noble cause has been bastardized
by a few bad apples and some brief nudity.
Bitcoin and other related cryptocurrencies threaten
some of the long-standing traditional business models
globally, and no more so than in the United States. Based
on the article, a UK bank is illustrated as a prime ex-
ample of the bank’s adverse stance toward cryptocur-
rency investors.
1
 How to Close the Talent Gap in the Blockchain Industry
The problem that banks and govern-
ments fail to acknowledge is they cannot
ethically classify everyone who deals with
cryptocurrency as a possible criminal. Cat-
egorizing an entire population of people as
possible bad actors is not fair to millions of
solid, trustworthy citizens who are simply
trying to create better lives for their fami-
lies and promising futures for themselves.
Improving an economy and erasing a $21
trillion national debt as reported at www
.usdebtclock.org takes accountability, re-
sponsibility, and a collaborative effort.
I’ve been in the crypto-economy for over
a year as a consultant, advisor, and author.
My relationships and client base are scat-
tered across the globe and my industry
learning curve has been massive. Some of
“these people” are the most brilliant indi-
viduals in the world. They include amaz-
ing female financial technology (FinTech)
leaders whose passion for global social jus-
tice is unmatched. They also include bril-
liant CEOs who have invented solutions
to support banks. And they include some
of the most talented artists on the planet.
They also include some unethical players
and smooth-talking charlatan marketers.
At the end of the day, because Bitcoin
is decentralized and global in nature, try-
ing to prevent it is like plugging a hole in
a dam with your finger. When you do that,
another hole just pops up somewhere else.
Closing random people’s bank accounts
is like putting a small piece of gauze on a
gaping wound. It does nothing. And since
there is so much money invested globally
in an attempt to democratize wealth and
break the traditional power structures, sim-
ply ignoring or bad-mouthing open-sourced
blockchain technologies like Bitcoin is an
exercise in futility.
While there are indeed some bad play-
ers making money hand over fist in this
new global decentralized cryptocurrency
economy, there are also some amazing
global technology inventions that help
banks, traditional hedge funds, retailers,
universities, clearing houses, settlement
2 © Business Expert Press 978-1-94944-331-8 (2019)
www.businessexpertpress.com
companies, insurance companies, and any
other traditional incumbent structure con-
sidered to be part of the Old Guard.
This article highlights some of these in-
ventions that help to preserve companies
being threatened by blockchain technolo-
gies. It also highlights the widening talent
gap in the blockchain industry and where
the real talent exists. So many people, after
not knowing what a database even is 1 year
prior to today, are now supposedly over-
night Big Data experts and global “influenc-
ers.” They sound great when speaking at
conferences, which makes it very difficult
to assess their real skill sets in the moment.
This article explores fact versus fic-
tion from a human resource perspective.
The goal is to support universities as they
prepare students interested in a career in
blockchain economies. A dual goal is to
support companies in adopting blockchain
technologies that help them to build their
businesses successfully going forward in
this new digital world.
“Dot.com 2.0”
The main focus of this article is on Alterna-
tive Coins (Altcoins), which are tokens
issued by startup companies attempting to
create their own cryptocurrencies. A simi-
lar comparison is corporations issuing com-
mon stock to their shareholders. While this
comparison does not hold true for crypto-
currencies like Bitcoin, Litecoin, or Ethe-
reum, most are a lot like penny stocks. The
tokens only become valuable by creating
value behind them, and that value is the
creation of a viable operating business
­
­itself or by a partnership with an existing
operating business that uses that crypto-
currency token as a financial instrument.
There are many parallels between the dot.
com economy in the late 1990s that was
filled with paper millionaires who lost it
all and this new crypto-economy. The old
saying holds true: If the emperor has no
clothes, he has no real value. One can’t
open an ice cream shop down the street
from his house without knowing first how
Expert Insights
 How to Close the Talent Gap in the Blockchain Industry
to make ice cream and then expect to be an
overnight billionaire sensation. One should
never expect her own faux currency to have
any value if her business isn’t valuable or
operational first. Yet many crypto enthusi-
asts do have this pie-in-the-sky “if you build
it they will come” expectation, just like in
Phil Alden Robinson’s 1989 movie Field
of Dreams starring Kevin Costner about a
farmer building a baseball field in the mid-
dle of his cornfield and expecting millions
of fans to just magically appear, and herein
lies the problem.
The Two Most Important Factors for
Americans
I recently spoke at a Lunch and Learn event
in New York and led some fun exercises,
including polling my client’s employees.
I listed the top benefits of open-sourced
blockchain technologies like Bitcoin and
the benefits of privately permissioned
blockchains, like those built by blockchain
development company Chain Ninja in New
Jersey. The results were so overwhelming
that in the next week I polled literally 50
other people at the pool, at the community
center, my friends and neighbors, and wait-
ers and cashiers.
The results show that two most im-
portant things to people in their lives
and in business who aren’t familiar with
the blockchain economy are saving time
and costs. Both factors are top benefits of
closed-sourced permissioned blockchains.
This finding further solidifies the no-
tion that efficient business operations are
paramount. Not only do blockchain start-
ups need to have effective operating busi-
nesses for their Altcoin cryptocurrencies
to be worth money, but also hard-working
employees at banks, major corporations,
hedge funds, retailers, and universities
need blockchain technology to save both
time and money.
From a global blockchain invention, pro-
ject or startup perspective, to date there has
been a 92 percent failure rate of Altcoin cryp-
tocurrencies (Bitcoinist.com 2018). While
© Business Expert Press 978-1-94944-331-8 (2019)
www.businessexpertpress.com
many believe the industry lacks integrity, it
also lacks an abundance of skilled, educated
people to run companies operationally in
necessary functions and industries.
Saving employees and clients’ time
and reducing their costs are both excel-
lent places to start. Building data-driven
organizations that accomplish these two
things require skill, talent, education, and
experience.
Adidas versus Nike
Before delving into solutions it’s important to
discuss sneakers. From humble beginnings,
Adidas has always been synonymous with
soccer. They have specialized in soccer cleats,
equipment, and clothing for over a century
and are the very best in their niche. Recently,
as the World Cup has grown in popular-
ity, Nike recognized the opportunity to cap-
italize and entered the soccer gear market.
Since their marketing budget is exceptionally
strong, they have made tons of revenue, even
though Adidas was there much longer.
The concept of blockchain isn’t new. Da-
tabases have been around for a long time,
even before the computer. Blockchain is a
database, just in a different form, a decen-
tralized form. Data, of course, are data.
The market message within the cryp-
tocurrency industry has been that all this
blockchain stuff is new and everyone is in
the same boat. That’s not true. As a data-
base creator in corporate America for over
20 years, I have a track record of building
data-driven organizations that have led to
hundreds of billions of dollars in incre-
mental shareholder value, especially while
I was at AIG. I know of no one else in the
industry who can claim that, yet somehow
overnight, crypto enthusiasts and startup
entrepreneurs without any corporate ex-
perience now amazingly do. Beware of the
emperor with no clothes.
While these marketing charlatans are not
my topic of concern, data are and so are its
time and cost saving opportunities for com-
panies, especially financial services com-
panies with fund management lifecycles.
Expert Insights
3