1) enjoying the technical challenges of crypto is to me like a guilty pleasure. So do I, but I don’t tell the world about it (outside of this HN comment).
2) such a high % of the people involved in crypto are doing something shady or illegal. Personally I would bet that only a slim slim slim monitory of US crypto holders pay their taxes accurately. For any top security clearance jobs in the US, you can’t have any major outstanding debts, because they could be used as leverage against you. In the same way, hiring a cryptobro looks like an unnecessary risk to me.
3) they probably can’t do the job I need them to do. For example, any front end change to our sales funnel requires a sign off from compliance. Can I trust a cryptobro to work in an environment with stricter rules & compliance requirements? Not really.
Being involved in crypto related things is a huge red flag that the person is most likely deeply immoral, greedy and opportunistic, which are traits that will most likely make the person hard to work with for the other team members.
I think throwing them out entirely might be a bit extreme, but stamping them with a big fat red-flag and moving them to the bottom of the pile seems totally reasonable to me.
This is a huge assumption to make about someone's character when all you know is that they were employed in $CRYPTO_COMPANY_X FROM $START_DATE TO $END_DATE.
You are forever tarring someone you don't even know.
If you are involved in recruitment it might be worth taking a look at those guesses you are making.
Godwin's Law: Let me put it to you this way, would you immediately dismiss or red-flag someone who previously worked at IBM?
Some companies will make a good impression, some companies will make a neutral impression, and some companies will make a bad impression.
And with the current situation, I doubt that crypto companies on your CV will be in the first category.
And they're not running a ponzi casino, pump-n-dump sh*tcoin platform, or bullshit Web3 scam.