Crypto is going through a talent crisis
I had a call with one of the top CMOs in the space recently. A lot of their marketing friends (startup and legacy web2 companies) won’t touch crypto roles currently.
Even the curiosity from tradfi folks currently feels down, yet the appetite for institutional roles from projects is consistently growing.
We also spoke about the reduced inflow of web2 talent into the space, and agreed it’s down drastically compared to previous cycles/years.
The effects of this are probably more obvious on the developer side. It’s no secret that we have to improve as an industry when it comes to developer acquisition (~10,000 active devs currently) and retention. While dev tooling has come a long way in recent years, certain friction points such as dev exp and developer activations need some love and attention.
On top of all this, there has definitely been an outflow of great talent leaving to AI, healthcare, biotech or other startups.
This is not a bear post btw, I remain incredibly bullish long-term. I think this 'talent migration' is more so temporary and likely due to structural reasons than anything else. M&A season is upon us, see Bridge and Privy deals, (i've also heard multiple more big acquisitions are in the works, which we might see materialize before the end of year) and over the next few years, I think we’ll see a healthy consolidation across the landscape.
I’m just curious if others are seeing/feeling similar?