The surge in interest surrounding Solana memecoins that began in early 2024 has led to a heightened demand for Rust engineers, as noted by the CEO of a cryptocurrency job board. Raman Shalupau, the CEO and founder of CryptoJobsList, shared with Cointelegraph that this trend appears to be fueled by the “Solana memecoin frenzy,” where Rust is the dominant programming language.
Currently, the combined market capitalization of Solana memecoins stands at an impressive $6.28 billion, far surpassing the $1.2 billion market cap of Ethereum layer 2’s Base, according to data from CoinGecko. Since the launch of the Solana blockchain in March 2020, Rust has begun to capture attention away from Ethereum’s Solidity as the preferred language for writing smart contracts.
CryptoJobsList indicates that there are currently 99 job openings for Rust developers, compared to just 45 for Solidity developers. Shalupau highlighted that in the last three months alone, 32 jobs related to the Rust programming language have been posted.
This growing demand for Rust positions has contributed to a record-breaking total of 564 crypto job postings on CryptoJobsList in July — a remarkable 109% increase from the previous month.
CryptoJobsList’s monthly crypto job postings since August, 2023. Source: CryptoJobsList
Kevin Gibson, founder of the cryptocurrency recruitment agency Proof of Search, has also observed a rising demand for Rust engineers and developers. He speculated that a “FOMO” (Fear of Missing Out) hiring wave may occur once Bitcoin reaches the $100,000 mark.
Gibson noted that professionals who have maintained their roles throughout the bear market might receive multiple job offers with salaries 30-50% higher than their current earnings, despite the ongoing constraints on budgets.
According to salary data from CryptoJobsList, the average salary for cryptocurrency employees is $88,000, while those in the top 10% earn around $165,000. In contrast, Neil Dundon, founder of CryptoRecruit, mentioned to Cointelegraph that his firm has noticed a slight decrease in demand for developer positions, although there has been an increase in sales-related roles.
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