May 1st is a fitting moment to examine how cryptocurrencies, Web3 and blockchain are reshaping work. Freelancers and salaried employees worldwide are increasingly paid not in roubles or dollars but in USDT or ETH. Some do so to sidestep blocks and banking hassles, some to capitalise on loyalty to an employer, others because there is no alternative.
Crypto has become not only a means of settlement but a pass to a new, borderless—yet risky—economy. Lina Valitova explores how blockchain and Web3 are transforming labour markets, what professions are emerging in a decentralised world and what obstacles specialists encounter along the way.
Crypto — the new pay trend for international freelancers
For digital nomads, getting paid via banks is too slow, costly and cumbersome. According to исследованию ZeroHash, 58% of freelancers say local banking systems do not suit them, and 65% have lost income to currency barriers when working with foreign clients. Against this backdrop, crypto has become an attractive alternative.
The same study reports that almost all respondents (93%) would like to receive part of their earnings in digital assets, and nearly two-thirds would prefer dollar-pegged stablecoins to national currency. The share is especially high in countries with volatile currencies (in Argentina and the UAE more than 80% of respondents would choose stablecoin payments).
The reasons are obvious: cryptocurrencies enable instant payments with low fees and no banks. In addition, freelancers prefer digital-asset pay because, sitting in a regulatory grey zone, it may escape taxation.
For Russia they became a way to send salaries to international employees after SWIFT and PayPal were cut off. During the wave of relocations, the dominant questions in Russian-language immigrant chats were how to buy, sell or exchange crypto.
In early August 2023, according to an опросу by Solar Staff, a popular service for Russian-speaking freelancers, just over half of respondents (57%) either knew nothing about crypto or had never used it. The rest used digital assets regularly or at least knew how to execute basic transactions.
The same survey showed that more than 35% of Russian-speaking developers would like to be paid in crypto, though only 6% were already doing so. Project managers were even keener: over 40% of Russian specialists expressed interest in crypto pay and around 11% already used it. The main advantages they cite are independence from banks, protection from sanctions and global payment access.
Yes, paying in crypto is still prohibited by law in Russia, and freelancers worry about legality and taxation. Even so, the trend is clear: digital assets are becoming a fully fledged payment rail for remote work.
According to a отчету by Triple A, global crypto ownership rose to 562m in 2024—almost four times more than a year earlier. A substantial share of that growth came from freelancers and remote workers in developing countries seeking more convenient, unconstrained ways to get paid.
DAOs and Web3: new models of work
Decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs) and Web3 platforms offer a fundamentally different way to work. DAOs are communities without bosses or strict hierarchies: participants decide for themselves what to work on, how much to contribute and co-own the results. In practice, they are a hybrid of employment and volunteering: everyone is both a “staffer” and a co-owner. One can belong to dozens of DAOs and contribute at will.
Such digital collectives attract workers, particularly those disillusioned with office routine. At their peak in August 2022, DAO participation reached 3.4m people. It is a drop in the ocean compared with the traditional labour market, but the growth is striking—140,000 new members joined various DAOs in July 2022 alone.
Work in DAOs is often project-based: instead of a fixed salary, contributors earn bounties for completed tasks or governance stakes in the form of tokens. Pay can be very high. There are cases of active DAO contributors making up to $300,000 a year.
A survey of 422 DAO members by Gitcoin and Bankless found that 50% could make a living—fully cover their needs—through DAO work. Many started by moonlighting alongside a day job, then “quit for the chain”.
Tokens instead of shares: the internal economics of firms
Crypto affects not only freelancers but traditional firms. In blockchain, it has become standard to include tokens in employee compensation. Web3 teams earmark portions of token supply to reward developers, marketers and community managers—akin to stock options in conventional tech.
This builds an internal economy in which a project’s success directly lifts the team’s wealth. Unlike shares, tokens are often saleable much earlier—sometimes immediately after listing. That liquidity can attract talent with the promise of quick gains, but it also creates challenges: easy cash-outs may encourage short-term price chasing over long-term product value. Companies are learning to use vesting to retain people and link rewards to genuine milestones.
There are already examples. Major exchanges launched their own tokens (BNB at Binance, OKB at OKX) and distributed them to early staff; those bonuses later multiplied in value. Many recall Uniswap’s 2020 UNI launch, which distributed governance tokens not only to users but to the development team, in effect turning key employees into co-owners of the ecosystem.
Some Web2 firms are experimenting too: pilots of in-house corporate cryptocurrencies for incentives—digital “badges” or points redeemable for perks—exist. For instance, on Microsoft’s Azure Blockchain Tokens platform, companies can mint tokens to reward employee achievements. Some Russian firms, such as «Рамакс» and «Норникель», issue digital assets to motivate and reward staff. These initiatives are still isolated, but they hint at potential: tokenisation can enliven corporate culture by giving each employee a tangible stake in team success.
New professions in the age of crypto
Crypto’s boom has spawned a spectrum of roles unheard of a few years ago. In demand today are blockchain developers and smart-contract engineers, tokenomics specialists, digital-asset lawyers, DeFi analysts, DAO managers and NFT creators. Even traditional sectors see niche roles emerge. Big galleries, for example, hire experts in NFT art, while game studios recruit managers for in-game token economies.
On this wave, crypto employment has surged. By K33 Research’s оценке, global crypto employment almost doubled and a half from 2019 to 2023—from roughly 73,000 to 190,000 workers. LinkedIn фиксировал a 395% increase in US crypto job postings in 2021, versus about 98% across tech overall. Even in the 2022–2023 bear market, specialised sites still публиковали some 15,000 new Web3 vacancies monthly—hiring continued despite the chill.
Alongside new roles, blockchain has also created ways to earn without taking a job. One popular pursuit is the airdrop hunter: users who actively engage with new projects (testing platforms, making transactions, interacting with DAOs) in the hope of receiving free tokens.
According to an исследования by X-explore, “premium” hunters who received airdrops from five large projects earned an average of $18,935 per wallet, while “standard” hunters made around $9,384. Though time-consuming, experience-intensive and risky, for some this has become a steady income stream in Web3.
Risks and challenges in crypto’s labour market
There is, of course, a flip side. Crypto’s impact on employment comes with serious risks and turbulence.
Volatile incomes
Crypto prices are unstable, which directly affects those paid in digital assets. Today your fee in ETH may be worth $2,000; a month later it could be $1,200. Even stablecoins sometimes carry peg risk (remember UST’s collapse in 2022). Workers must either convert immediately to fiat or accept swings. Developers paid in project tokens in 2022 were shocked as the bear market slashed real incomes by tens of percent. Dollar swings against local currencies add another layer. Crypto firms also ride the boom-and-bust cycle: in the upturn they poach talent with high salaries; in the downturn they cut headcount sharply.
Mass layoffs tend to coincide with the biggest crashes (Terra, FTX). The chart below shows the number of crypto employees laid off by month (February 2022 — January 2023):
In recent years the industry has endured a wave of cuts. After record hiring in 2021, by mid-2022 many firms began to “shed ballast”. Terra’s collapse sparked a surge of layoffs: in June 2022 more than 3,000 crypto workers lost their jobs. Another blow followed in autumn when FTX went bankrupt, triggering a new wave (1,805 in November).
In January 2023, layoffs continued at almost the same level (another ~2,800 staff). By some оценкам, about 13,300 people lost crypto-industry jobs between April 2022 and autumn 2023. Even giants were hit: Coinbase shed roughly 2,000 people over two rounds; Kraken cut 30% of staff; Crypto.com, ConsenSys, Gemini and many others downsized substantially. For specialists, uncertainty is high: one day you are in demand; the next your firm shuts down amid a market crash or regulatory ban.
Security and trust
Working with crypto requires digital literacy and caution. A freelancer paid in BTC is responsible for protecting a wallet—one typo in an address or a phishing attack can wipe out earnings, with no recovery. DAO participation raises legal questions: there is essentially no formal contract, benefits package or guarantees. Disputes are settled by token-holder votes, which are not always fair to rank-and-file contributors.
The sector also attracts fraudsters: pyramid schemes can lurk behind “new projects”. With scant regulation, working relationships rely on trust and reputation, and abuses occur in any field. Projects may delay team payments or pay with illiquid tokens that promptly crater.
Legal uncertainty
Countries treat crypto pay and work differently. In some places, bitcoin salaries are banned; in others, they face heavy taxation. Regulators are only beginning to clarify the status of DAOs, NFTs and other instruments, creating grey zones. An employee may face ambiguity—should a token earned for work be treated as a security (with all that entails)? Tax risks also loom: the state may demand back taxes on crypto income if it was not properly declared. Regulation affects firms too: exchanges exit strict jurisdictions, moving teams abroad. Such relocations and legal turbulence complicate life for workers.
Despite the hurdles, the market is learning to smooth risks. Services now offer instant conversion of crypto salaries to fiat, insurance products for users and legal advice for DAOs and crypto startups. Volatility is partly addressed by paying in dollar stablecoins—which most freelancers already prefer.
Employee feedback
Volatile incomes, mass layoffs, security and trust issues, and legal uncertainty make working in crypto demanding and risky. Reddit users echo this experience. For instance, a poster named TheResistancexz highlights currency instability in certain countries.
“If you live in Venezuela, where the currency devalues by the time you try to cash your cheque and spend the money, then yes, it [getting paid in cryptocurrency] makes sense,” he wrote.
A user under the pseudonym Ricozuri stresses the importance of financial stability when opting to be paid in digital assets:
“If you earn enough to cover expenses, rent, holidays, savings and the rest, then you can definitely take part in BTC, thinking of it as a pension fund. But if you live paycheque to paycheque, it is a big mistake.”
Commenter tiggs adds that, despite obvious benefits of crypto payments in some regions, the practicalities are often complex and inefficient for companies.
“For companies it is unprofitable: you have to pay a fee to buy crypto to pay salaries to employees, the money is eaten by exchange and transfer charges, plus staff need training to use cryptocurrency accounts,” the post says.
Conclusion
Cryptocurrencies have already left a mark on the labour market, making it more global, decentralised and dynamic. They open new avenues for professionals—from contributing to DAOs to joining international projects without bureaucratic hurdles. An economy is taking shape in which talent can be rewarded directly in digital assets and community contributions converted into tokens.
But there is a downside, from extreme volatility to legal tangles yet to be resolved. Anyone building a career in crypto must be ready for constant self-education, financial prudence and rapid adaptation. In a sense, this is a return to the roots of entrepreneurship: no guarantees, but freedom—and potentially rich rewards.