With shrinking salaries, higher entry barriers, and restrictions on residency status, is Web3 still worth pursuing in 2026?

Author: TT3 Labs

Preface

Before we begin this observation report, let’s take some time to calibrate the coordinate system for this observation.

As a remote opportunity recruitment platform focusing on the Chinese-speaking market, TT3Labs' perspective is inevitably limited. We cannot see the entirety of the Web3 world, nor can we cover the recruitment ecosystem of the English-speaking community. The data in this report comes solely from our backend operational data from Q4 2025 to February 1, 2026, supplemented by cross-validation through community interviews and publicly available information. We acknowledge that there is some bias due to the limited sample size, but the micro-level data can occasionally yield some insights. If possible, we hope it can serve as a small signpost on the long journey of practitioners.

Chapter 1: The Rising Threshold and the Increased Barriers: When the "Halo of Big Companies" Meets "Academic Deflation"

1.1 Why are so many people suddenly crowding here?

The structural spillover in the Web2 talent market is not a matter of sentiment, but rather a result of a dual squeeze from physical downsizing and industry restructuring. Mature platforms like Alibaba have achieved physical downsizing of tens of thousands of employees through organizational flattening. In its 2024 fiscal year results, Alibaba reported a total of 204,891 employees, a decrease of over 15,000 from 2023. On the other hand, companies with relatively stable employee numbers, such as Baidu and ByteDance, are undergoing drastic restructuring, eliminating traditional operations, functions, and mature businesses in their maintenance phase, and replacing them with AI algorithm and global talent. This reallocation of business focus has led to a passive spillover of many mid-level and technical personnel with extensive internet experience who are not part of the new business logic.

For many mid-level managers and traditional technology stack engineers, Alibaba's layoffs mean job loss, while the personnel changes at Baidu and ByteDance mean that experience becomes obsolete. This net outflow of talent and the change in personnel structure have a significant impact on the talent market.

Back-end operational data shows a continuous increase in the proportion of applicants from traditional internet backgrounds, with a significant rise in candidates having a gap of more than 6 months in their job search. Meanwhile, more people view Web3 as a "risk-averse transition" rather than an "interest-driven entry." In preparation for this article, we interviewed several job seekers, all of whom expressed a desire to find an outlet in Web3 to combat anxiety about turning 35 and the intense competition in the workplace.

1.2 The Economic Considerations Behind “Academic Deflation”

However, the barriers to finding new opportunities are rising. In the TT3Labs system, we define companies with 0-50 employees as "startups." Even for these "small but beautiful" teams, the hiring threshold is quietly increasing.

* Data source: TT3Labs, internal operational data as of February 1, 2026.

Among the startup positions added between Q4 2025 and February 1, 2026, approximately 46% require a bachelor's degree or higher, while over 3% explicitly state a preference for graduates from top-tier universities ("985/211" or "QS top XX" universities). When a Web3 startup offers an annual salary of approximately RMB 350,000-450,000, in the current domestic job market, this budget is sufficient to hire a graduate from a prestigious university with over three years of experience.

This elite selection process, modeled after traditional industries, signifies that Web3 recruitment has moved from an early stage of indiscriminate selection to a more rigorous screening process.

1.3 The Ineffectiveness of Big Company Endorsements and the Hidden Barriers to Top CEXs

Compared to the straightforward educational requirements of startup teams, the top 10 mainstream exchanges (CEXs) are more cautious in their job descriptions, rarely mentioning specific age or educational restrictions. However, the hidden industry barriers have become more difficult to overcome.

Analysis of the initial screening pass rate of candidates revealed that, between general technical experts from large companies with no industry experience and candidates with two years of industry experience, most HR personnel on the platform chose the latter without hesitation.

* Data source: TT3Labs, internal operational data as of February 1, 2026.

This is not because the technical skills of the personnel overflowing from large companies are weak, but rather determined by the nature of CEX's business. The core narrative of China's major internet companies revolves around traffic, while CEX, as the mainstream employer of Chinese-speaking Web3, is closer to fintech and asset risk control.

For centralized exchanges (CEXs), someone with trading experience, an understanding of blockchain logic, and familiarity with terms like "perpetual contracts" and "on-chain transactions" can significantly reduce communication costs. Therefore, industry know-how carries far more weight than general skills at this stage. And with nearly 70% of positions being unfriendly to candidates with zero experience, a large number of potential entrants are forced to compete for only one-third of the available opportunities.

1.4 The Absurdity and Practicality of "Leveling Up by Demotion"

The soft barrier of industry experience has given rise to a pragmatic job-seeking strategy. In our community discussions, experienced individuals often offer this "practical advice" to newcomers: to gain access to the inner circle, software engineers with several years of experience are recommended to intern or "volunteer" at smaller DEXs (decentralized exchanges) or early-stage projects. Employers are happy to accept these experienced candidates for such "internships." Job seekers work for a few hundred dollars a month or even without pay, just to add "on-chain" project experience to their resumes to compensate for the failure of the big-company halo in the face of industry barriers. This is a clear form of employment exploitation, but a large number of candidates in the job market accept this approach, hoping to gain a competitive advantage through it, which also reflects the allure of this industry.

Chapter Two: Misalignment and Employers: What are mainstream employers actually looking for in the talent market?

2.1 The largest employer that cannot be bypassed: CEX

* Data source: TT3Labs, internal operational data as of February 1, 2026.

While decentralized narratives (DeFi/DAO) are the industry's spiritual totem, in the current Chinese-language job market, centralized exchanges (CEXs) and their ecosystem companies remain the absolute largest providers of jobs, at least on this platform. Compared to the less stable project teams, CEXs have more publicly available information, a more solid brand image, and higher levels of discussion on social media. This directly translates into a more transparent employer reputation, and trust is the most valuable asset in this industry.

In this environment, many potential candidates who are not yet in the industry often equate CEX with Web3. While CEX is many people's first exposure to this field, a centralized organization cannot fully represent the future of the decentralized narrative. Because CEX is essentially a financial infrastructure for transaction matching and asset custody, profiting from transaction fees and market speculation, these employers have more stringent requirements for risk control and efficiency during periods of market volatility.

In a public interview at Binance Blockchain Week in December 2025, Binance Co-CEO He Yi cited "insufficient talent density" as the organization's biggest challenge. Platform data analysis and interviews revealed that the top 5 CEXs easily receive over 100 resumes a day for new job postings via Telegram, websites, referrals, and other channels. However, the average time for closing these positions on their platforms is as high as 25 days. This indicates that while there is still significant room for improvement in the platforms' daily active users, it also demonstrates that even leading companies find it difficult to find ideal employees. The concept of an ideal employee can be broken down into two parts: firstly, the candidate must meet the employer's ideal employee profile; secondly, the employee themselves must possess a genuine passion and expectation for the industry, rather than simply being driven by a misconception about the industry and a desire for quick profits.

2.2 The Disappearing Middle Management: The Truth Behind the "Demotion" from Team Managers to Execution Levels

We tracked dozens of senior candidates who applied for jobs through TT3 and discovered a clear phenomenon of "job level squeeze":

It's not uncommon for candidates whose resumes indicate non-Web3 team management experience to be reassigned to Senior Developer or Senior Analyst roles after taking up their new positions. This shift from managerial to executive roles can be attributed to several factors beyond the difficulty of transitioning experience as an industry newcomer:

* Data source: TT3Labs, internal operational data as of February 1, 2026.

1. Scale limitation: Even though people on social media often compare mainstream exchanges with top-tier internet companies such as ByteDance and Tencent, apart from a very few top-level CEXs with thousands of employees, the vast majority of Web3 project teams have only a few hundred or dozens of people.

2. Flat organizational structure due to single business: Since the existing business scenarios of mainstream CEXs are still limited, and various new tokenized businesses are still in the incubation and exploration stage, compared with the various BG/BU of Internet companies, the relatively simple transaction fee business model of CEXs is difficult to support a large middle management group.

Whether it's token-issuing projects, U-card organizations, or various exchanges, a company's new revenue largely depends on market conditions or the performance of external KOLs and part-time business development personnel. This leads to long-term anxiety among employers regarding performance, resulting in highly sensitive hiring strategies. Once performance declines, they are likely to adopt a strategy of reducing human resource investment.

This sense of displacement makes many feel like they're stuck on a rut, leading more practitioners to frequently switch jobs, sometimes even working for several employers simultaneously, resulting in a lack of belonging and identification with the company. A data sampling survey conducted through the backend system shows that the average tenure of current users in each Web3 job is only 8.6 months. The idea that a large number of practitioners are only interested in making quick money has become an industry consensus, similar to the sentiment expressed by Upay.

Chapter Three: Payday and Demystification: The Price Lies in the Unseen Place

3.1 From "Fraud Prevention" to "Protection": A Shift in Focus

Early followers of the "TT3 Where" social media account might recall a post we published in Q3 2025 that sparked considerable discussion: "The Moment I Received a Web3 Offer, I Hesitated." At the time, the comments section was filled with questions and doubts about whether "U" (presumably referring to a company or organization) was reliable and whether "a company I've never worked for" might disappear. These concerns reflected a high-risk perception among some potential professionals.

Just two quarters later, news about stablecoin compliance emerged one after another, such as the implementation of the Hong Kong Stablecoins Ordinance on August 1, 2025, and the entry of fiat-pegged stablecoin issuance into a licensing and regulatory framework, all appearing in mainstream media. Inquiries and questions about "payment security" within the community have significantly decreased. The focus has shifted to more practical issues: such as social security and housing provident fund contributions, tax compliance, and other routine labor-management concerns. While "U-based wages" have gradually lost their stigma, some common-sense labor-management issues still trouble aspiring professionals, influencing their entry decisions. We expect that as business entities become more compliant, employers will also become more standardized in their hiring practices, and worker protections will gradually improve in the future.

3.2 Salary Distribution: Convergence of Explicit Premium

* Data source: TT3Labs, internal operational data as of February 1, 2026.

We observed that the mainstream salary on the TT3 platform is between $3,000 and $5,000 . Considering the percentage of "take-home pay," this industry still offers good returns. In conventional technical/operations roles, the median salary offered by Web3 overlaps to some extent with that of the traditional internet industry.

High-paying positions exceeding $8,000 are mostly concentrated in a very small number of core contract roles and resource positions that can bring significant growth to the company. For most regular positions, the premium has converged, and more and more customer service and operations positions with monthly salaries below $3,000 are becoming available. Web3 is no longer an era where everyone can earn a high salary . Job seekers are using "lack of social security," "job instability," and other "policy risks" rarely encountered in traditional industries as huge hidden costs in exchange for their ideal "geographical freedom."

However, such comparisons are inherently unfair. People often compare the salaries of top internet companies with positions at second- or third-tier companies in the Web3 industry, using a "Tian Ji horse racing" analogy to conclude that "this industry or this company's position is not worth pursuing." In reality, top-tier positions in any industry are scarce and highly competitive, and there are significant differences in salary affordability between leading companies in different industries due to industry variations.

Chapter Four: The Besieged City: Identity Anxiety and "Double Migration"

4.1 Starting with Singapore's "Visa Anxiety"

Starting in Q4 2025, we noticed a significant shift in our communication with candidates: Singapore-based talent began focusing primarily on visa issues. Due to Singapore's tightening of licensing requirements and clarification of business scope in 2025, many organizations were forced to relocate. With compliance restrictions tightening, those who had hoped to resolve their immigration status through Web3 were now facing the pressure of unresolved work permit (EP/SP) renewals and were forced to seek new paths. Over the past eight years, many companies have been migrating in a nomadic manner. While some businesses can settle down by obtaining compliance licenses, many overseas professionals, before resolving their overseas immigration status, are like herders who have lost touch with their communities.

4.2 Job mobility and the overseas migration of digital nomads

At the same time, compliance requirements for job positions are also tightening. We have observed that an increasing number of sensitive positions, especially those involving user data, human resources, visas, payroll management, and financial operations, are showing a higher proportion of restrictions related to 'work authorization/nationality preference,' and even extreme descriptions such as 'Non-CN preferred,' making the candidate's location one of the main considerations for employers.

* Data source: TT3Labs, internal operational data as of February 1, 2026.

This situation has spurred a new wave of migration. TT3's user IP map shows that IP activity in Southeast Asia continues to rise. On the one hand, Southeast Asia already has a large number of multilingual talents, and many Chinese-speaking talents are engaging in geographical arbitrage, earning global-level salaries while enjoying a high quality of life in low-cost regions.

Meanwhile, some operational positions targeting the Chinese-speaking market are shifting from Chinese employees to Malaysian and Thai Chinese or foreign nationals fluent in Chinese. Their language advantages and lack of compliance burdens are making them new favorites in the Web3 Chinese-speaking job market.

Conclusion

The Web3 job market in Q1 2026 is undergoing a painful return to common sense. Stories of overnight riches will continue to be repeated on KOLs' social media platforms like Instagram, but rumors of ordinary workers getting rich overnight are becoming increasingly rare. As the overall job environment in the industry becomes clearer and more transparent, it also means that opportunities for meteoric career advancement are decreasing.

Just like the phrase at the bottom of our website: "Start your new adventure in the remote workplace," every new day is a new adventure for us. The period from the end of 2025 to the beginning of 2026 will be a tough winter. The vision of riding into spring is not as beautiful as imagined. Some people get off and some people get on. There is no light hidden in the K-line chart to illuminate your way forward. Your belief is that light.