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Comment by DennisP | Hacker News Reader

You can still mine GPU-based cryptocurrencies. Two examples are ZCash and Ethereum.

It'd definitely not too late to get into smart contract development on Ethereum. It's what I do for a living, and demand is high.

If you want to just buy some coins, it's pretty easy to set up an account on a solid, regulated exchange. In the U.S., Coinbase, Gemini, and Kraken will let you fund an account directly from your bank.

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How did you get into contract ethereum development? What does that require in terms of skill set (C/C++)? Where are you finding these jobs that claim high demand? I'm thinking about breaking into contract development and working on block chain tech, and this seems like a good opportunity.

You need a reasonable understanding of how Ethereum works (and blockchains in general). The primary language is Solidity, which is pretty simple but has some security gotchas to be aware of. Javascript is most important for writing UI. There's also an API for Go, so that can be pretty helpful. The main clients are written in Go, Rust, C++, and Javascript.

Write some open source code, blog about it, participate in the community, and if you impress people they'll come to you. Resources:

ethereum.org

https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/White-Paper

https://solidity.readthedocs.io/en/develop/solidity-in-depth...

https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/JavaScript-API

r/ethereum

r/ethdev

https://gitter.im/ethereum/home

ethereum.stackexchange.com

truffleframework.com

https://github.com/ConsenSys/smart-contract-best-practices

https://medium.com/@weka/announcing-the-winners-of-the-first...

An impressive and thoughtful response, thank you Dennis for taking the time to inform me!

Good luck, and if you go for it, welcome aboard!

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