Is working in Web3 no longer appealing?

Author: Zhou, ChainCatcher

Frequent Job Hopping and Talent Waste?

According to the 2025 Web3 Employment Report released by Coincub, over 66,000 new Web3-related positions will be added in 2025, a 47% increase from the previous year, but the number of active positions remains far below the peak in 2022. Especially since the third quarter of last year, personnel turnover has accelerated, resembling a concentrated wave of resignations.

The reality is that many people are not leaving voluntarily, but rather because projects or related business lines are difficult to sustain.

A Chinese practitioner from a European crypto team stated that layoffs are far more common than voluntary job changes. In the second half of last year, the volatility of cryptocurrency prices strained the funding chains of projects, leading to concerns that the bear market had truly returned, shifting the mindset from aggressive job hopping to cautious observation. However, for some small teams, the lack of long-term funding often makes survival during a bear market difficult, while exchanges have been simultaneously hiring and laying off staff.

Frequent layoffs and short-lived projects have made job hopping commonplace in the Web3 space. Many people list a plethora of well-known projects on their resumes, but their average tenure is not long. As Wonderland CEO Matias Nisenson mentioned, he often encounters many talented candidates with impressive resumes during interviews, who have changed jobs almost every year for the past four years. He lamented that the truth is that most of the companies they joined failed before launching their products or shortly after. Top talent is thus wasted in projects lacking prospects, severely diluting their value.

Therefore, the problem often lies with the projects themselves rather than individual capabilities. After all, no one wants to look for a new job every year.

At the same time, the cost of job hopping has quietly risen. Frequent changes not only make an individual's career path increasingly fragmented but also make resumes look like "project stepping stones." The market is becoming more rational, and project teams are no longer impressed by "resume stacking." They now care more about what contributions you have made on-chain, whether you have actual outputs on GitHub, and what results you have delivered in the past.

@Tina_在路上 pointed out that rather than calling it a wave of resignations, it is more accurate to describe it as a period of talent replacement and a transition between bull and bear markets. In the past few cycles, most talent in the crypto space came from unconventional backgrounds, with many young people lacking systematic workplace training; however, as the industry matures, a large influx of professionals from big companies is inevitable.

Current talent flow is increasingly directed towards growth-oriented companies with higher salaries or quality startup projects, shifting from CEX to DEX, and from traditional employment to freelancing. She believes that this flow is bidirectional: bubble projects are rapidly being cleared out, while truly high-quality projects with long-term narratives are seizing the opportunity to attract top talent. For talent, identifying quality employers has become easier.

According to well-known crypto KOLCrypto Brave, OKX recently adjusted its institutional business team, with about 80% of employees being laid off. He noted that such adjustments often stem from mismatches between early incentive mechanisms and current business needs, such as heavy burdens from fixed commissions for older employees and a lack of significant new customers.

Raising Barriers and Professional Transformation

During the past two bull and bear cycles, the Web3 industry has still been in a phase of wild growth, lacking a complete methodology for operations, growth, and product development, which sharply contrasts with traditional internet sectors. At the same time, the effectiveness of Web3 work is highly dependent on market conditions; when the market is sluggish, project progress, user growth, and revenue often stagnate or even regress.

After the market boom recedes, raising barriers is the most direct manifestation. In the past, as long as you had some enthusiasm for the industry and basic skills, or even said "I can learn," you could basically secure an offer. Now, some quality projects and exchanges almost require 3-5 years of actual Web3 experience, and some positions explicitly demand educational backgrounds from 985, 211, or QS top 100 institutions, with English becoming a hard requirement.

At the same time, the proliferation of AI tools has further squeezed entry-level positions, with basic development, operations, and content work being automated. Companies are more inclined to seek senior individuals with systematic design capabilities and expertise in specific fields.

An anonymous practitioner candidly stated that as industry recognition increases and talent flows in, the barriers for companies naturally rise: BD needs to understand investment strategies, traditional financial interfaces, and API integration; developers no longer just write smart contracts but also need to understand protocol design, security audits, and cross-chain architecture; operations must grasp growth systems, community governance, and tokenomics design.

In reality, the Web3 job market is increasingly leaning towards specialized divisions, with a pronounced trend towards technology-driven roles. High-efficiency projects like Uniswap and Hyperliquid, as well as the most influential developers from the DeFi era, have repeatedly proven that individual capability leverage can greatly amplify output. More and more technical talents are choosing the "independent contributor" route, relying on protocol revenue sharing, grants, bounties, and token appreciation for their annual income, rather than fixed salaries. This model demands high personal capability but allows excellent developers to maintain passive income even during bear markets.

In contrast, business operation-driven models (like CEX) rely more on team size, sales execution, customer acquisition capabilities, and compliance with licensing, resulting in relatively lower salary ceilings and more evident internal competition. However, regardless of the driving line, professional transformation has become an irreversible trend.

The Illusion is Broken: What Should Those Looking to Transition into the Industry Be Aware Of?

Early Web3 was seen by many as a dream factory, during a time when the bull market bubble was still intact, with trading, airdrops, and token incentives leading to quick wealth; development and operation positions often offered high salaries; global distributed teams allowed for work anytime, anywhere.

Many entered the space with a shortcut mentality, only to suffer heavy losses in trading, with some even experiencing negative overall wealth accumulation. Surveys show that 25% of people ended up "paying to work" after entering the space.

Crypto KOL @hmalviya9 predicts that with the influx of Web2 talent, Web3 salaries and incentives may drop by 50% to 90% in the next 2 to 3 years. Regarding remote work, many remote positions will shift to a hybrid model by 2025, and remote work often comes with a 7×24 on-call norm, which is not as easy and free as imagined.

Spheron co-founder @blockchainbalak lamented that high salaries have ruined a generation of developers. Young people earning $100,000 to create memes and chat in groups gradually lose interest in true creation. Engineering teams no longer pursue scale and problem-solving, as the market values atmosphere over speed. Now that liquidity has receded, those who once profited without effort are trapped, lacking skills and struggling to develop.

In this environment, for those still looking to transition into the industry, the following points may be more realistic:

First, abandon the fantasy of quick success. As for necessary skills, English is an unavoidable hurdle, as overseas opportunities almost always require it.

Second, when choosing a starting direction, prioritize fields with long-term value, such as AI + Web3 integration, compliance infrastructure, and stablecoins/RWA-related areas. Utilize AI to solve information gathering and organization issues, choose a vertical field to deepen expertise, and then practice—interact with mainstream protocols, write project analyses, produce content, and adjust your resume through interviews.

Third, learn to publicly document your work, recording personal contributions on GitHub, on-chain interaction records, or community outputs, so that potential employers can directly see your value. However, some industry insiders advise that before transitioning, it’s best to participate in open-source contributions or community ambassadorships to verify whether you can adapt to a high-volatility environment.

Most respondents indicated that the Web3 industry is not suitable for those seeking stability, but it does offer a growth density far exceeding that of traditional industries.

Therefore, if you are here because you heard it’s easy to make money, please be cautious; your mindset may make you a target for exploitation. If you truly love the industry and enjoy a globalized new lifestyle, welcome to join, but be prepared for hard battles.

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