I have always seen Crypto as a red flag. Initially, there was just a suspicion, but then I ended up meeting with some Crypto people in real life, and corresponding with recruiters in the Crypto space. And if I was on the hiring department, Crypto on a resume would get a hard-pass from me. It filters out people with a mentality that I do not like to be around.
You can't choose how you will be identified by people as being of some race, gender, religion, political beliefs... which all constitute illegal discrimination for employment in some countries (France is an example where it's illegal to discriminate on political opinion, or in our case, supposed opinion I shall say).
A hard pass on crypto means passing on people who
- wanted to bank the poor
- wanted freedom
- wanted self sovereign identity
- wanted border-less transfers for their family abroad
etc... Many people want to do good with crypto.
Questions: is it immoral to be in it only for the money at a carbon sequestration startup? How do you tell, from a resume? What if this startup is just greenwashing bs in the end? What if the money is to help his grand parents in the Philippines?
I think there's no clear cut way to judge the morality of someone from their resume: not from their skin color, nor from their previous work places. And I think it's unethical to judge people on what you presume of their own morality.
To paint an accurate picture, an hard pass on crypto would mean:
- wanted to bank the poor, with crypto.
- wanted freedom, with crypto.
- wanted self sovereign identity, with crypto.
- wanted border-less transfers for their family abroad, with crypto.
They could have chosen any of those areas without, but they chose to do it with crypto. There is a clear choice for them to do that, as well a very reasonable option for an employer to choose an employee "who wanted freedom, with XXX" over an employee who "wanted freedom, with ZZZ (crypto)". This does not equate to racism (neither is it unethical imo), regardless whether the employer chose to exclude based on perceived morality of their crypto choice.