© Provided by CoinDesk (Midjourney/CoinDesk)Shortly after Tal Rabin joined the University of Pennsylvania in the fall of 2020, the computer and information science professor managed to convince the institution to teach him a special class in blockchain engineering.
"I have 140 classes, but I am limited by the size of the country," he said. "There were 200 students on the waiting list who didn't make it, so it must have been awaited with great enthusiasm."
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Despite high demand from students, Robin, who specializes in cryptography, soon discovered the challenges that come with teaching such a broad subject with low academic standards and curriculum content. With a range of potentially important topics to cover, Rabin says he often has to rely on the expertise of others.
"I think there are things that are important to blockchain, but I don't know about things like blockchain, [the Securities and Exchange Commission], data mining, [immutable tokens] and legal issues around the industry and things such as that," he said.
Although interest in blockchain education is strong, available courses can vary greatly between institutions and often depend on a small number of enthusiastic professors. "When I look at the courses that my friends offer, they all learn for their own benefit," says Rabin.
Relying on minimal educational infrastructure such as standards and certifications and even course materials and textbooks, formal education in the blockchain space is largely driven by individual professors. Although sometimes supported by partnerships with local blockchain companies and foundations, such as the Algorand Foundation, where Robin serves as head of research, higher education institutions will not be able to attract large numbers of crypto graduates to industry soon. (After all, only eight of the 240 schools featured by CoinDesk for the Best Blockchain Universities 2022 have undergraduate degrees in blockchain.)
"Perhaps it is too far, for what is included in such a reference?" He says. “Will it cover the basics of blockchain, will it cover the implementation of the above? It changes every day in this industry and it takes time for these things to mature.”
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Blockchain has long had a skills problem, with its adoption, implementation and use consistently outstripping the availability of talent. So far, the industry has been able to achieve significant growth by relying on people who are educated and can train themselves, but this will not be enough to bring the industry into the mainstream.
While it's still relatively early days, some big names in finance are already making big bets on blockchain, including JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. In fact, JPMorgan's crypto team already has 200 full-time employees.
Blockchain has the potential to touch almost every corner of the traditional financial industry, from investment banks to private equity firms, hedge funds, law firms, payment providers and more. As a result, in the coming years, there will be a huge need for qualified talent with an equally wide range of blockchain-based skills across all industries.
As more traditional organizations look to increase their blockchain capabilities, and with it their talent pool, many are looking for some form of educational value. This is especially true in finance, a highly regulated industry that has long maintained strict licensing and education requirements for compliance, and is used to considering candidates based primarily on their formal education.
While some may fear the financial industry has an outside influence on blockchain education, Rabin says his strongest drivers remain homegrown blockchain startups, at least for now.
"Now the people funding universities to build educational programs are blockchain companies, not traditional financial industries, so their voices are being heard more this time," he said.
However, until recently, formal blockchain education did not exist, and what exists today is not enough to support the financial industry to take blockchain's potential seriously, as many eventually did.
The relatively new crypto industry, on the other hand, has long rewarded self-taught enthusiasts over those from the ivory tower in keeping with the decentralized nature of the grassroots movement. However, this mindset may soon be in danger of becoming a victim of its own success.
Self-taught pioneers in the field have been so effective in convincing the rest of the world to take the space seriously that many traditional financial institutions are rapidly upgrading their blockchain capabilities and dying for talent. Too hungry to rely on a single pool of self-taught talent. The market is now looking for a more efficient and universal education infrastructure that can help propel the industry into the future.
"There's been a huge shift in demand," said Caroline Lowe, partner and financial services partner at True, a global executive talent search firm. “It started when some popular hedge funds said they have 2% of their assets in crypto. Statements like this increase the belief that crypto is here to stay.
More than a third of traditional hedge funds are currently investing in digital assets, according to a recent PwC report, and more than two-thirds plan to expand their holdings by the end of the year.
Lowe, who held 15 positions at traditional financial institutions, said the highly regulated industry hired workers with a seal of approval from a reputable educational institution, or who had at least passed standardized assessments.
"For example, being a derivatives trader requires a certain level of understanding and knowledge of the risk profile of derivatives and how products are traded for sale," he said. "Everyone in the derivatives market does the same test, whether they're in London, Hong Kong or New York."
Lowe explained that while many people in the industry are still interested in the technology and want to expand their blockchain skills, they are often unable to move as quickly as they would like due to qualification challenges.
“What companies go through now when hiring at a junior or mid-level is to go through more rounds of interviews than with non-crypto employees, to build trust and consensus that this person has the necessary skills. ," he says.
Lowe added that the task is made more difficult by the number of self-educated applicants, but not enough. He explained that many people can talk during an interview, but it is very difficult to identify those who actually have the necessary skills.
"If there's some kind of understanding and certification that people can come to, that would really help the industry," he said. "It will set an industry standard of quality and trust that can help blockchain and crypto become more mainstream in financial services."
Meanwhile, Lowe said, most rely on their ability to recruit candidates with existing employee skills or relevant training in related fields. There also seems to be a preference for candidates who participate in blockchain clubs and candidates with previous work experience in blockchain-related startups. He also saw many traditional financial institutions putting together teams that combined blockchain expertise with experts in other disciplines as they struggled to find enough candidates with expertise in both.
"One example where we're seeing a lot of activity is building teams in the payments organization," Lowe said. "What a lot of companies have to do is build a team where some people know payments and some people know crypto, but it's really hard to find someone who knows crypto payments."
What is self-study?
As the industry pushes for more regulation, educational standards and eventually widely accepted certifications, Lowe also said it's important to exercise caution, especially in such a young and fragile field. He, like many others, feared what might happen if educational requirements became too strict, or if companies were forced to fire those without certain credentials.
"You can only go so far with something, especially in a market that's still very early but very creative," Lowe said. to get an accreditation that recognizes them as people qualified to create, create and offer crypto.
A field that combines technology and finance to balance self-learning and certification will be subtle but essential to enable continued innovation. The technology sector itself has long welcomed talented graduates at postgraduate level from top universities, but in finance one profile is usually favored over another.
However, if and when widely accepted credentials are established, this may limit their career opportunities.
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Gina Peters, a teaching assistant in the University of Chicago's economics department, which offers undergraduate and graduate programs specific to blockchain, isn't worried that more formal education will encourage self-study. Because, according to him, the two rarely compete for the same career opportunities; Self-educated people prefer to work in (or start) native blockchain companies rather than working in more traditional institutions.
"It fills a little bit of a different niche," he said. "People will continue to learn on their own and we encourage that. I don't think we're replacing it, and I don't think it's a competitor's product.”
Peters explains that students seeking careers in local blockchain companies and startups are taking this course out of personal interest. However, those interested in pursuing roles in traditional financial institutions seem convinced that their limited educational background in this area will be an advantage.
"If students want to go to JP Morgan or a traditional firm, they think, 'This might give me an edge,'" he says. "For them, it adds an extra skill to speak up in an interview."
Those seeking employment at major financial institutions upon graduation also find listing blockchain-related courses on their resumes an advantage, given the demand for these skills and the limited certifications available. "With traditional companies moving into the crypto space, you're seeing more traditional thinking out there," he said.
At the same time, Peters doesn't think those same candidates are taking jobs away from self-study. “Students in this field would love to work with crypto [or native blockchain] companies,” he said.
Both worlds have worked well together so far, with formal and self-taught education finding its place in the field. What he and others fear, however, is that pressures to establish more formal educational standards and credentials could limit opportunities for the self-taught.
"If companies hire low-quality workers because they have formal training, they fail," he said. "At the same time, there are those whose formal education system works well and we must say that it is also unfair to allow only self-taught students.