Crypto job posts on LinkedIn rocketed 395% in 2021

January 17, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Binance

Job postings with terms like “Bitcoin,” “Ethereum,” “blockchain” and “cryptocurrency” grew 395% in the United States last year.

It wasn’t just a bull run for prices last year. Careers in crypto outstripped price action in 2021, as crypto job searches soared by 395% in the United States alone, according to LinkedIn.

Crucially, the crypto industry outpaced the wider tech industry, which also saw remarkable development, almost doubling its number of job listings. However, at 98% growth, the tech industry dwindles in comparison to crypto jobs, which gained by a whopping 395%.

Furthermore, no industry was safe from “crypto-ization” in 2021. The LinkedIn News post offered valuable insight into crypto influencing other industries:

While most of the job postings were in software and finance, other industries are also seeing a rise in demand for crypto talent. These include professional services like accounting and consulting, as well as the staffing and computer hardware sectors.

For 2022, the growth trend looks set to continue. The biggest exchanges in crypto are brimming with job posts; Coinbase has over 250 openings, Kraken over 300, and the world’s most active exchange, Binance, lists more than 600 job posts.

For Bitcoiners and Bitcoin (BTC) maximalists, there is a new resource — Bitcoiner jobs. A service dedicated to helping connect Bitcoiners with Bitcoin-only companies, it now offers almost 100 Satoshi-approved careers.

For those who are unable to switch jobs into crypto, a wider HR trend is crypto remuneration. The mayors of New York and Miami announced that they would take a portion of their pay in BTC in 2021, while seven NFL players have chosen crypto over cash salaries to date.

Nonetheless, while the crypto career switch appears to be gaining traction, the LinkedIn audience is not convinced. Most comments on the LinkedIn post were from bewildered onlookers wondering why crypto has value, and one aggrieved copywriter remonstrated the industry’s scammy nature.

Plus, given that Bitcoin price action has yet to impress in 2022, the crypto industry may struggle to sustain such high human resources growth levels.

In the 2018 bear market, several cryptocurrency companies laid off staff. In sum, BTC activity needs to pick up to continue to support job creation.

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Brave launches browser-native crypto wallet to combat fake extensions

November 16, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Brave Browser

Brave Browser challenges wallet providers like MetaMask by introducing a native crypto wallet built into the browser.

Privacy-oriented browser Brave continues to deepen its commitment to cryptocurrency adoption by replacing its extension-based cryptocurrency wallet with a browser-native one.

The company announced to Cointelegraph on Tuesday that it is prepping the official launch of Brave Wallet; a self-custody cryptocurrency wallet built into the Brave desktop browser, enabling users to store and buy cryptocurrencies like Ether (ETH).

Brian Bondy, chief technology officer and co-founder at Brave, told Cointelegraph that the new wallet replaces Brave's MetaMask extension fork named Crypto Wallets. According to the CTO, the new implementation that was "built from scratch, natively into the Brave Browser.”

The new wallet is different from other web3 wallets like MetaMask in that it does not require users to download an extension, but is rather built directly into the browser itself as a core feature. According to the firm, this is supposed to reduce security risks and reliance on extra CPU and memory.

Bondy said that the browser’s cryptocurrency wallet is similar to hardware crypto wallets as it implements its own BIP32 hierarchical deterministic wallet.

“The funds are always stored on the blockchain, but the keys to unlock those funds are stored in the Brave Wallet,” Bondy said. He added that user’s private keys always remain on hardware devices if the user chooses to connect a hardware wallet by providers like Ledger or Trezor.

According to Bondy, the industry’s reliance on crypto wallets in the form of browser extensions is one of the main impediments to mainstream crypto adoption due to their limited security.

“One of the biggest problems with extensions is how easy it is for criminals to make fake ones pretending to be a good wallet extension — such spoofing attacks are quite common,” the CTO said. Bondy cited examples like fake MetaMask extensions aimed to steal users’ crypto, noting that these also “tend to accumulate a number of code dependencies” that may potentially lead to unresolved security audit errors over time, adding:

“Extensions cannot paint on the “full canvas” of the browser’s user interface, especially not the address bar or unspoofable toolbar. Brave Wallet can make full use of this user-interface area to help protect users from being tricked.”

The Brave Wallet allows users to transact in “almost any crypto asset,” supporting all chains compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine, or EVM, including Polygon, xDai, Avalanche and others. Bitcoin (BTC) support is in development and will come at a later date, Bondy said. As the company plans to expand its browser with more blockchains, the Brave Wallet will also integrate the Solana blockchain in 2022.

Apart from supporting DApp interactions, the Brave Wallet also allows users to send and receive nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, based on EVM-compatible blockchains. The wallet also allows users to buy crypto with many fiat currencies including the United States dollar or euro via the crypto-to-fiat service Wyre.

The Brave Wallet is free and immediately available on desktop, while its mobile application will integrate the wallet at a later date. In order to get started with the Brave Wallet, users need to download the Brave browser and upgrade it to the latest 1.32 version. The new wallet is different from Brave Rewards, the opt-in feature that rewards Brave users with Basic Attention Tokens (BAT) for viewing privacy-protecting ads.

Brave Browser is a brainchild of JavaScript creator and Mozilla co-founder Brendan Eich, who co-founded the Brave Software startup with Bondy back in 2015. In June 2017, Brave raised $35 million in 30 seconds during its BAT initial coin offering.

The crypto-friendly browser has become extremely popular in recent years, with monthly active users surging from 25 million in February to over 42 million as of November 2021.

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Crypto tax startup TaxBit raises $130M in funding round, now valued at $1.3B

August 12, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Crypto tax startup TaxBit raises 0M in funding round, now valued at .3B

Business

The company said some of the funds would be used to open new offices in the United States and the United Kingdom.

Already classified as a unicorn startup, United States-based cryptocurrency tax software developer TaxBit now has a valuation of more than $1.3 billion after a recent funding round.

According to a Thursday announcement, IVP and Insight Partners led a $130 Series B funding round for TaxBit with participation from Bitcoin bull Anthony "Pomp" Pompliano, Tiger Global, Paradigm, 9Yards Capital, Sapphire Ventures and Madrona Venture Group. The company said it planned to use the funds — which bring its valuation to $1.33 billion — to scale its tax and accounting offerings system as well as open new offices in the United States and the United Kingdom.

The investment comes five months after the company raised $100 million in a Series A round, which it said would be used to fund its expansion into the United Kingdom. This year, TaxBit launched an office in Seattle and plans to provide crypto-related data analysis and tax calculation support for taxpayers through the Internal Revenue Service, or IRS.

TaxBit CEO Austin Woodward spoke on Pomp’s YouTube channel today, saying that the company had anticipated additional crypto tax reporting requirements from the U.S. government, such as those in the $1.2 trillion bill that passed the U.S. Senate this week. According to Woodward, crypto taxes were "the number one topic debated and discussed,” as several U.S. senators proposed amendments modifying the language regarding crypto brokers in the bill.

Launched in 2018, TaxBit is designed to automate aspects of crypto tax compliance for enterprises, consumers and governments. The company achieved unicorn status this year — a valuation of at least $1 billion — and has partnered with many firms handling digital assets, including major crypto exchange Gemini.

"We are living in a time where everything is going digital, including traditional assets," said Woodward. "As we've built and deployed modern tax and accounting software tailored to digital assets, it's become clear that legacy tax information reporting solutions are built on antiquated technology that provides a poor client experience.”

Coinbase acquires crypto exchange data aggregator Zabo

August 5, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

Zabo’s API integrations include more than 50 crypto exchanges and wallet services, including Coinbase’s rival Kraken.

Nasdaq-listed cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase continues buying spree by acquiring the cryptocurrency aggregator service Zabo.

According to a Wednesday announcement, Coinbase has started the process of acquiring Zabo, a Dallas-based cryptocurrency startup providing data integration services with major crypto exchanges and wallets, including Coinbase’s rival Kraken. The size of the acquisition deal wasn’t disclosed.

Founded in 2018, Zabo is building technology to connect cryptocurrency accounts from various exchanges and wallets to unify their crypto holdings in pre-formatted, standardized data via an application programming interface (API). Specifically, the service allows users to retrieve balances and transaction histories from several crypto addresses seamlessly.

According to the company’s website, Zabo’s API integrations include more than 50 crypto exchanges and wallet services, including Coinbase’s rival Kraken, major blockchain wallet Ledger, crypto payment platform BitGo, crypto exchange FTX and others.

“Over the last three years, with the help of our amazing team, customers, investors and partners, we succeeded in establishing the Zabo API as the world's most powerful tool for connecting to any crypto exchange, wallet, protocol or account,” Zabo co-founder Alex Treece wrote in a blog post.

“We are very excited to join Coinbase, which has done more than perhaps any other company in advancing the mission of bringing cryptocurrency mainstream,” he added.

Last year, Zabo raised $2.5 million in a seed round led by tech-focused venture capital firm Moonshots Capital to continue connecting its customers’ cryptocurrency wallets to banks, brokerage firms, FinTech apps, and tax software. Other investors in the round included major crypto investor Digital Currency Group, European asset manager CoinShares, and Tezos Foundation.

The largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States, Coinbase has been expanding its buying spree this year, acquiring several crypto startups, including blockchain data analytics platform Skew, blockchain infrastructure platform Bison Trails, and trade execution platform Routefire. In April, Coinbase went live on Nasdaq through a direct listing of its COIN stock.

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