Thursday, February 28, 2019

What bears? 🐻

February 28, 2019

Blockchain Engineer Demand Skyrocketed 517% in One Year as Investment Pours In

According to a new report released by recruiting company Hired, blockchain engineers saw global demand increase by 517% year-over-year.

That performance actually made blockchain the fastest growing software engineer role on the platform.

The standings were:

Blockchain engineer
Security engineer
Embedded engineer

Raking in the dollars

But as demand soars, compensation naturally follows.

That's why blockchain engineers are now the second best-paid software engineers in London and New York, as well as third in San Fransisco and first in Paris.

Worldwide, that compensation averages out to a salary of $105,400.

Where's it coming from?

The investment in headcount is largely being fueled by blockchain-related funds and venture capital.

According to Diar, blockchain-led operations secured $1.6 billion from these capital pools in 2018 alone.

In total, 2018's heavy addition notches the entire industry close to $5 billion raised.

EARNINGS

Square Sold $52 Million Bitcoin in Q4, Surpassing Q3 and Q2

In its annual earnings report, payment provider Square reported $166 million in annual Bitcoin revenue - 31% of which came in the fourth quarter.

These figures contrasted with Square as a whole, however. In total, the firm reported a weak forecast for the first quarter of 2019 and included a profit warning for investors.

Shares of Square fell following the report.

Growth is there

But despite Squares troubles and the crypto market slump, it is interesting to see Bitcoin purchases grow quarter-over-quarter.

Unfortunately, this growth hasn't been too helpful to Square's bottom line since little profit is made from transaction fees.

Still, CEO Jack Dorsey is a fan of Bitcoin and has plans to see them through.

"I think there's a lot more we can do…in terms of making (Bitcoin) more transactional…making it simple enough that I could justify buying a cup of coffee in the morning."

REPORT

After $20 Million in Funding, a Project is Getting Exposed for Fraud

Wednesday, CoinDesk published an investigation that may have uncovered a $20 million fraud in crypto.

The project, called BHB, was already previously accused of running a pyramid scheme. Now, further investigation has revealed inconsistencies in founding team members.

Faking team pictures

After visiting the team's website (which has since been shut down), CoinDesk reached out to three members who were allegedly involved with the project.

Two of the three swiftly denied the report and deemed the project fraudulent for using their photos. In one of the two cases, economics professor Alexander White was renamed to Bobby White by BHB.

In addition, an invalid phone number and fake address were displayed on the website as the project's contact information.

Still chugging along

The report has yet to receive comment by the team.

For now, the project has swallowed about $20 million from investors - an amount that would certainly place BHB high on the list of crypto scams.

BITS

But wait, there's more...

🇨🇳 China's 10th crypto rankings keep EOS in first with TRON sweeping into second.
💸 Open source data startup Coin Metrics raises $1.9 million in first funding round.
🚨 Crypto money laundering reports skyrocketed in Japan last year.

MEME