Crypto didn’t emerge only to reinvent money or move databases onchain. It represents a deeper shift away from opaque systems and toward mechanisms that can be inspected, verified, and reasoned about directly: Code is public. Transactions settle predictably. Rules are enforced by software rather than by discretion.

Yet when it comes to hiring, many of the same builders designing these systems quietly forget these principles: Hiring in crypto often looks surprisingly traditional. School pedigree, brand name employers, and familiar institutions continue to dominate early screening. 

These signals are convenient, but they’re fundamentally trust based. They ask…