Blockchain jobs rise in India despite government pushback

India has seen significant rises in blockchain jobs over the past few months, according to an Economic Times report, that quoted sustained boosts in postings from the job search site Indeed.

According to the site, the amount of cryptocurrency and blockchain-related jobs posted on Indeed increased by nearly 300 percent in the six months up to November of 2017. During that time, job searches with related keywords also rose steadily on the Indian Indeed site.

Sashi Kumar, the managing director of Indeed India, told the Economic Times that the global market for blockchain jobs is expected to reach $7.7 billion by 2022.

“While blockchain development promises to be an exciting new field of work and offers tremendous scope for application, the sector is still in a very nascent stage,” Kumar said.

Ever since the release of Bitcoin in 2009, when cryptocurrency and blockchain technology was first introduced to a wider audience, momentum has been steadily gaining in the industry.

Matej Michalko, the founder, CEO and president of the Swiss-based blockchain startup DECENT, said the growing industry is just now beginning to bloom with job opportunities in new marketplaces across the world.

“Even though it has been around since 2009, blockchain is still considered a “new” technology and companies are just starting to explore its capabilities,” Michalko said. “From small startup companies to large corporations, everyone is looking for blockchain solutions across all industries. This means a huge number of job opportunities in the blockchain space are available right now and the more accepted the technology becomes, the more jobs it will create.”

A possible obstruction that could stifle the growth of blockchain jobs in India is the government’s notoriously strict stance on Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. According to Bitcoin News, the Indian government recently announced it would strengthen restrictions against these cryptocurrencies and that it had planned to roll out those regulations in March.

Indian’s Finance Minister Arun Jaitley recently stated cryptocurrencies are not a legal tender in India, the article added.

A separate Bitcoin News article quoting a survey said that a staggering 10 percent of all Bitcoin interactions in the world take place in India, proving that the market may keep rolling on even with the government intervention.

The government has responded, in part, by following the “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” motto and beginning its own blockchain project. Titled IndiaChain, the initial program will use blockchain to give out digital certificates to students that can then share their diplomas immediately without using an intermediary.

Electronic health records and land records may then be the next in line for the Indian government’s implementation of blockchain technology, according to an Entrackr report.

“Distributed ledger system or the blockchain technology allows organization of any chain of records or transactions, without the need of intermediaries,” Jaitley said in a budget presentation last week, as reported by Entrackr. “The government will explore use of blockchain technology proactively for ushering in a digital economy.”