Day: April 6, 2018

Bitcoin’s retreat from the weekly highs may have set the tone for a drop to $6,000 over the next 24 hours.

A planned hard fork of privacy-centric cryptocurrency monero has just executed and the community is keenly observing the results.

Even though most of the cryptocurrencies are still suffering from bearish momentum right now, it remains to be seen if there is any positive momentum on the horizon. For the EOS price, things are not looking all that bad compared to most of the other cryptocurrencies. In fact, it seems the EOS price is stabilizing above $6, which would be a milestone in its own right.

EOS Price Bucks the Negative Trend

With virtually all cryptocurrency markets in the red once again, it is all the more remarkable to see the EOS price going up as of right now. Even though it remains to be seen how long this trend will last, the current sentiment in the EOS community seems rather positive. It is uncanny how some altcoins can successfully buck the overall market trend, even though it may just be brief.

To put this into perspective, the EOS price has risen by 6.54% in the past 24 hours. That in itself is pretty positive, especially with Bitcoin and Ethereum going down as of right now. With this small gain, the EOS price has surpassed the $6 mark once again. Compared to its all-time high of nearly $17 a few months ago, there is still a lot of work to be done until the market looks healthy again.

Even so, EOS is slowly gaining on both Bitcoin and Ethereum as of right now. In fact, this popular altcoin has gained 10.61% over Bitcoin and a shocking 11.13% over Ethereum. While it is not uncommon for altcoins to note some big gains over both of these top currencies, it does go to show Ethereum will face a lot more hardship in the months to come compared to Bitcoin. For speculators, that is one worrisome trend they need to keep an eye on, for obvious reasons.

On the trading volume front, EOS makes virtually all other currencies look bad. Its volume of just under $623.3m is quite impressive, especially when considering how all markets have to deal with a decline in trading volume for several weeks now. For EOS, this volume is more than sufficient to keep the momentum going for some time to come, although the market can still turn bearish at any given moment.

It seems South Korea is very much intent on pumping the EOS price right now. Bithumb and Upbit are dominating the charts and combine for over 43% of all trades. Especially the volume on Bithumb is well out of proportion compared to the rest, although Bitfinex is gaining on Upbit as of right now. How all of this will play out, remains to be determined

For the time being, the EOS price is successfully bucking the market sentiment. Maintaining this unusual situation will not be easy, especially if the Bitcoin price continues to decline further. While EOS is gaining on Bitcoin right now, a bit more pressure on BTC will send all cryptocurrencies in a downward spiral once again.

Japan is struggling to find enough coders and engineers to fill the seats of it’s booming cryptocurrency industry according to Reuters.

Japan Needs More Qualified Coders

When Coincheck was hacked in January losing $530 million worth of NEM tokens the company offered the excuse that it did not have the staff to maintain the security protocols it had established. Critics said the company cut corners and had diverted too much of their overall budget to advertising.

As it turns out though Japan is suffering from a shortage of coders and engineers with the experience and ability that it’s ever-growing cryptocurrency market demands.

There are 32 cryptocurrency exchanges already in operation and at least 100 more waiting on registration from Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA). Pair this with increased security regulations handed down to exchanges since the Coincheck hack and the result is a hiring scramble to find the right people with blockchain and cybersecurity abilities.

According to the Ministry of Economy, in 2016 there was a shortfall of 15,000 workers in the big data and AI fields. This is expected to increase to 50,000 in 2020 based on trends in the industry against the number of new candidates coming into the market.

Labor Shortage has Driven up Demand and Salaries

This shortage has led to very competitive hiring practices and an overall increase in starting salaries in the industry. Pascal Hideki Hamonic, company director of Descartes Search, headhunters who specialize in the cryptocurrency and blockchain industry was quoted by Reuters as saying “the supply of labor can’t keep up with demand.”

Salaries have risen 20-3o percent from the previous year with the base salary of a new coder now topping $100,000. Mark Pink another recruiter for the industry said

 “Exchanges are looking for people who can do the creative, thinking work – to create the architecture, not just do basic tasks,”

This shortage of skilled coders isn’t only being felt in Japan. As more and more companies look toward implementing blockchain technology and the cryptocurrency industry continues to expand other countries are facing the same problems.

Hong Kong, for example, is looking at a large potential growth of the technology in their banking and insurance industries but have a finite number of eligible people to allow that growth to happen.

Other countries like the UK and the US that have good environments for research through their university systems have pools of engineers well versed in the developing technologies and see no immediate shortage.

In Japan, though the problem is exacerbated by the rigid labor culture that binds employees to their companies for life. “The majority of Japanese that do understand blockchain and cryptocurrency already work for companies as lifetime employment, and have never considered the thought of changing jobs,” said Jonathan Underwood Dean of Blockchain Daigakko.

Recruiters interviewed in the Reuters article agree that until those attitudes change the labor crunch will continue.

The post Cryptocurrency Demand is So Strong That Japan Can’t Find Enough Coders appeared first on NewsBTC.

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