Crazy hiring at Europe's new crypto Unicorn

As we noted yesterday, cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has discovered a taste for hiring associates from investment banks as it builds out in Europe. It's not the only crypto firm with a massive appetite for recruitment. 

Bitpanda, the Vienna-based cryptocurrency trading platform backed by Peter Thiel, which has just raised $263m is hiring with a zeal that's unheard of in traditional asset classes. It currently employs just over 500 people, up from around 200 this time last year, and has over 150 new jobs open - implying that another 30% expansion in headcount is baked-in.

If anything, the pace of recruitment at Bitpanda seems likely to increase exponentially: 13 of the new roles are for specialist recruiters working across everything from technology to the C-suite. 

While Bitpanda is headquartered in Vienna, it's hiring for remote positions and roles across Europe in its offices in Berlin, Barcelona, Krakow, London and Dublin. As with any start-up, the big lure is pre-IPO stock.

For the moment, there are only a handful of ex-bankers and traders on Bitpanda's books. Business development manager Aga Korycka, turned down the offer of an analyst position at Goldman Sachs in 2019 and joined Bitpanda instead. Dublin based head of treasury Andrew Cochrane joined from AIG. Daniel Castillo, a finance project manager in corporate development and strategy was formerly an equity capital markets (ECM) associate at Banco Sabadell in Madrid. In London, the firm just hired Matthias Bauer-Langgartner, a former technical specialist at the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to manage its business in the UK and Ireland. 

As it expands, Bitpanda seems certain to raid banks more comprehensively in the future. Current vacancies include opportunities across liquidity risk, treasury trading, in-house corporate finance and ETF sales. 

Most of the vacancies are for developers. It's not clear how much Bitpanda pays but recruitment firm Selby Jennings says pay for good crypto developers can be as high as $200k to $250k. 

Photo by Lucas Santos on Unsplash

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