currenWall Street is hellbent on getting its feet deep in the waters of crypto and it is recruiting an army to do so. Bloomberg reported that in the last three years, about 1,000 crypto-related roles have been created on Wall Street by financial firms looking to gain exposure to the market. Among these have been megabanks like JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs, which have since begun offering crypto trading options to their clients.

The demand for cryptocurrencies following the rallies has been the major push behind this. However, the profit factor cannot be ruled out. Wall Street is driven by gains and with the massive gains being recorded in the crypto market, it was only a matter of time until Wall Street arrived in the crypto space. Some would even venture as far as to say that it arrived later than expected.

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Filling Up The Ranks

It is interesting to see the evolution of crypto sentiment on Wall Street. In the early days, Bitcoin and its crypto counterparts were disregarded by traditional finance markets. Banks had mostly ignored the asset class and others called it a “bubble” or a “fad” that was expected to die out. The crypto market has proven all of these sentiments wrong. Instead, Wall Street has had to do a complete 180 on its stance on the market and has been slowly but surely making its way into the space.

Total crypto market cap hits new ATH | Source: Crypto Total Market Cap on TradingView.com

Big banks and top firms in the finance space have been opening rows with mouthwatering compensation packages to draw cryptocurrency talents into their ranks. Data from Revelio Labs shows that just 10 banks and financial firms on Wall Street alone have added almost 600 crypto-related roles since 2018.

Goldman Sachs led the pack with a total of 82 crypto-related roles staffed in 2018. Others like Wells Fargo and Fidelity had posted similarly impressive numbers with 74 and 68 crypto jobs created in three years.

Can’t Ignore Crypto

If there’s one thing that traditional financial markets can no longer do anymore, it’s ignoring cryptocurrencies. They might have been able to go a few more years doing the bare minimum and not worry about the impact of crypto on their industry but the advent of decentralized finance (DeFi) has proven that big banks and finance firms need to gear up for battle, and they cannot do it on their turf anymore.

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The rate at which the firms are staffing the crypto-related roles and their willingness to pay big bucks for said roles show that they can no longer ignore the market. At the speed cryptocurrencies are moving, it’s a get-on-or-get-left-behind train.

Last month, analyst Christopher Brendler had said that Wall Street brokers were bullish on the crypto market despite skepticism. Through a study, Bendler had found that 15% of Wall Street payments brokers were beginning to take crypto more seriously compared to 5% at the start of 2021.

Alan Johnson, managing director of Johnson Associates, said that “banks can’t run the risk that their clients go to another bank to do these services so they need to build up.” With clients demanding for more exposure to the cryptocurrency market, it is imperative that these firms are able to offer the services their clients demand. Otherwise, they run the risk of losing their clientele to other firms.

Featured image from History.com, chart from TradingView.com