Top Wall Street funds prefer team investment, and high-quality talents become the largest capital
Looking back at the last round of bull market in encrypted digital currency, the whole industry cheered for it, and a hundred flowers bloomed in every track. As more and more institutional investors turn their attention from traditional finance to encrypted finance, and from gold to Bitcoin, the adoption of cryptocurrency by institutions has also begun to accelerate, and the total market value of the encryption industry has risen sharply. At the beginning of 2020, the total market value of the encrypted asset industry was only US$193 billion, and then with the aggressive entry of institutional investors, the market value of the entire encrypted market hit a maximum of US$3.01 trillion.
Before institutional investors began to scramble to enter the encryption market, some investment institutions had already ambushed in the encryption field and started their own strategic layout. These investment institutions have also gradually become the signal lights of the encryption market, including a16z , which created the myth of the investment circle, Sequoia Capital, which recently announced the establishment of a US$600 million encryption fund, and the "Viking Long Fund" of the old hedge fund company Viking Investment. Master Ltd", and Three Arrows Capital, which has been focusing on blockchain technology investment and encryption since 2017.
2020 is the moment for investment institutions to aggressively enter the blockchain industry. Previously, investors were still hesitant to enter the encryption market due to high volatility and lack of regulation, but gradually, large enterprises have gradually begun to occupy an important position in the encryption field. Then, under the leadership of the Wall Street institution Da Niu, various venture capital institutions began to infiltrate funds into the encryption field, and invested in some potential and innovative encryption projects. It is understood that there will be a large inflow of encrypted asset funds in 2021, reaching 9.3 billion US dollars, and the amount of investment and financing in the first half of the year alone has exceeded the whole year of 2020.
An overview of projects invested by leading institutions in the industry in 2021 Source: 98kDAO
2020 is the moment for investment institutions to aggressively enter the blockchain industry. Previously, investors were still hesitant to enter the encryption market due to high volatility and lack of regulation, but gradually, large enterprises have gradually begun to occupy an important position in the encryption field. Then, under the leadership of the Wall Street institution Da Niu, various venture capital institutions began to infiltrate funds into the encryption field, and invested in some potential and innovative encryption projects. It is understood that there will be a large inflow of encrypted asset funds in 2021, reaching 9.3 billion US dollars, and the amount of investment and financing in the first half of the year alone has exceeded the whole year of 2020.
01. Wall Street capital values the encryption track
How much do Wall Street investment banks value the encryption track? This can be seen in the latest interview speech of Maguire, partner of Sequoia Capital. In an interview with The Block, Maguire affirmed that cryptocurrency will become the biggest trend in the next 20-30 years.
This is the conclusion Sequoia Capital has reached after exploring the encryption track for nearly 8 years. Since 2014, Sequoia Capital has been exploring the entire track, investing in multiple cryptocurrency projects through equity and token transactions.
Some crypto projects invested by Sequoia Capital in the past year
In fact, with the exception of Sequoia Capital, most of the world's well-known venture capital institutions, including Viking Investment, have almost entered the encryption industry. Taking the 2021 Top 100 Global Unicorn Investment Institutions List released by Hurun as a comparison, except for Alibaba, A very small number of institutions such as Tencent have all invested in encryption projects.
02 Encryption market talents become scarce
Lending products and stablecoin regulation have benefited the industry, but cryptocurrency lending is likely to face strict regulation this year.
Centralized finance in the form of crypto companies is changing the financial markets. Talent is moving to crypto firms, and those institutions that actively bring crypto concepts into their traditional finance will win.
For example, Viking Long Fund Master Ltd, a cryptocurrency investment management firm owned by Viking Investments, is stepping up the pace of hiring to capitalize on the boom in talent entering digital assets. Its founder, the company has grown its headcount by more than 200% to nearly 200 people last year. This year, the company expanded to another 45 people. The founder said: "This pace has not stopped." The company's new employees come from banks such as Goldman Sachs Group, as well as employees from other cryptocurrency companies. The company also announced a new entry-level hiring plan this week, including plans to add more than 30 analysts in an "initial hiring sprint," according to a memo sent to employees.
The popularity of NFT and metaverse in 2021 will make the blockchain industry flourish, and more excellent blockchain teams and projects will emerge. However, the surge of blockchain companies has also increased the salary level of talents in the industry and increased liquidity. Taking blockchain development engineers as an example, the average annual salary is much higher than other industries, and the salary growth rate and turnover rate are also much higher than other industries.
Blockchain has the characteristics of traceability, non-tampering, openness and transparency, etc. These characteristics can effectively solve the current drawbacks in various industries. As blockchain is an emerging technology, the talent pool in the market obviously cannot satisfy the growing blockchain industry, which leads to the scarcity of high-end talents. Compared with other industries, they need to pay more salary and award. Because in the team, the cost of high-quality talents often occupies a large proportion.
The blockchain talent training cycle is long, the training system of universities is not perfect, and the blockchain involves many knowledge fields such as IT, communication, cryptography, economics, organizational behavior, etc., requiring a highly complex knowledge system, so " There is a serious shortage of interdisciplinary talents for blockchain + industry, and the situation continues to be in short supply.
In the demand-side market, the "dislocation" of talent supply and demand continues. Although the number of job seekers for blockchain-related positions is increasing rapidly, there are very few professional talents who really meet the job requirements of the recruiting companies. The serious shortage of high-end professionals will greatly restrict the development of the entire industry.
Therefore, rare things are expensive. Only a team with high-end talents can stand out in the highly competitive blockchain industry. Compared with general encryption industry investors, investment institutions prefer to invest in technical teams with high-end talents, and invest heavily in blockchain teams, so that high-quality talents can continuously create and output high-quality projects for themselves.
The scarcity of high-end talents in the blockchain industry has not yet been fundamentally resolved, and may even be exacerbated. Investment institutions are increasingly eager for high-quality talents. This also means that the war for talent has been quietly unfolding and intensified.