Authors: @Fromadistance11 & @ryanyoon_eth, Tiger Research

Compiled by: AididiaoJP, Foresight News

While the crypto industry's overall hiring scale continues to contract, compliance and legal roles are bucking the trend with significant growth. Engineering demand remains resilient, with centralized exchanges (CEX) and the stablecoin sector serving as the main hiring drivers. Based on real job data, this report clearly outlines the industry's trajectory from a speculative era toward institutionalization and compliance.

Key Takeaways

The crypto hiring market has yet to recover to its 2022 peak. According to Coincub data, new crypto job postings reached 66,494 in 2025, a 47% year-on-year rebound, but still far below the 2022 high.

The contraction intensified further in 2026, with new job postings on major recruitment platforms dropping approximately 80% year-on-year in January.

As of the first half of 2026, among the 2,932 active job postings tracked by Tiger Research, engineering roles accounted for the highest share at 34.1%; compliance/legal ranked second at 10.4%. Active roles are heavily concentrated in two major areas: regulatory compliance and technology development.

By sector, CEXs accounted for 30.8%, while stablecoins and payments accounted for 13.4%, together making up nearly half of all job postings. The gaming and NFT sector accounted for only 2.4%.

In the past, a market driven by token sales concentrated demand on community operations and token sale roles. As the market shifts toward institutional participation, the importance of product operations management and regulatory compliance capabilities has increased significantly.

The 2021-2022 Hiring Peak vs. Current Market Reality

The hottest period for crypto industry hiring was from late 2021 to the first half of 2022. At that time, both Bitcoin and Ethereum hit all-time highs, NFT trading volumes surged, and DeFi total value locked once reached hundreds of billions of dollars.

Major centralized exchanges aggressively expanded their global operations. Back then, Coinbase had over 250 open positions, Kraken over 300, and Binance over 600. DeFi protocols and NFT marketplaces were simultaneously recruiting large numbers of engineers and marketing talent, while the GameFi boom also pulled traditional game studios into the hiring fray. The focus then was on rapid expansion rather than immediately proving profitability.

Starting in the second half of 2022, the number of new job postings plummeted. Between 2022 and 2023, crypto-related job postings in most of North America and Europe fell by about 40%. The FTX collapse in November 2022 further exacerbated this slowdown, and the market has never since recovered to its peak levels.

To accurately grasp the current state of crypto hiring and read market direction from the data, Tiger Research compiled a proprietary dataset. As of June 2026, a total of 2,932 active job postings were tracked. Data sources include web3.career, cryptocurrencyjobs.co, major company career pages (Greenhouse, Ashby, Lever, etc.), as well as manual collection from Korean local platforms Wanted and Jobkorea. DAO contributor, freelance, and contract roles were not included in the statistics.

Major Crypto Companies Continue Layoffs in H1 2026

Restructuring began well before the first half of 2026. Wemade and Consensys conducted layoffs in the second half of 2025, and this trend extended to major exchanges like Coinbase, Gemini, Crypto.com, and Kraken in 2026.

March was the most concentrated month for layoff announcements in H1 2026, with six companies—Gemini, Crypto.com, Algorand, OP Labs, PIP Labs, and MessariCrypto—disclosing layoffs in the same month. In Q1, affected by geopolitical tensions such as Iran and overall market weakness, multiple companies chose this time to reset their strategic direction.

The reasons given by companies varied: Algorand cited the macro environment and token price declines; Crypto.com and Gemini emphasized AI integration; Coinbase announced a transformation into an "AI-native company."

Some companies, after multiple rounds of layoffs, were ultimately acquired at valuations far below their previous highs. Messari underwent three consecutive rounds of layoffs starting in 2023 and was acquired by Blockworks in June 2026 for approximately $10 million. At its peak, its valuation had reached $300 million—a trajectory that encapsulates the harsh reality of the current market.

Hiring Concentrating in Specific Regions

The proportion of remote work in the crypto industry remains high. Among active job postings in H1 2026, remote positions accounted for the largest share at 40.2% (1,180 roles).

Excluding remote roles, office-based hiring is primarily concentrated in regions with mature regulatory frameworks or lower uncertainty: the United States accounted for 21.8%, Singapore 5.9%, and Hong Kong 4.2%.

The crypto industry, once touted as "borderless," increasingly requires local operations and proactive regulatory engagement, with the hiring structure gradually concentrating in these mature regulatory hubs.

Compliance Roles Rising Rapidly

Engineering roles still ranked first in H1 2026, accounting for 34.1% (999 roles), demonstrating that demand for technical development remains robust even amidst an overall market contraction.

More notably, compliance and legal roles have firmly secured second place. In Tiger Research's 2023 global crypto job report, this category was not yet tracked separately; in just three years, it now accounts for one-tenth of all active job postings.

This trend is particularly evident in the exchange sector. Among 904 exchange roles, engineering had 275 (30.4%), compliance and legal had 145 (16.0%), while business development/sales had only 61 (6.7%). The number of compliance roles is 2.4 times that of business development/sales, indicating that exchanges are allocating more resources to regulatory defense rather than business expansion.

The growth in compliance hiring partly stems from the full implementation of the EU's MiCA framework—since December 30, 2024, a CASP license has become mandatory. European exchanges and asset management companies significantly expanded their compliance teams during this period.

A similar situation has emerged in South Korea. Following the implementation of the Virtual Asset User Protection Act in July 2024, demand for compliance talent at domestic exchanges has risen noticeably. This also explains why the proportion of compliance roles in South Korea reached 18.4%, nearly double the global average (10.4%).

A survey by CryptoJobsList indicated that content creation and community management are the functions most desired to be automated. These jobs often involve repetitive tasks and emotional labor with relatively low technical complexity, making them prime candidates for early replacement by AI agents. Hiring demand for these roles is currently declining, and practitioners themselves consider them the most suitable for automation.

CEX Dominance Solidifies, Stablecoin Sector Rises Strongly

The CEX sector had a total of 904 roles, accounting for 30.8%, nearly one-third of all job postings. Major contributions came from top exchanges like OKX (267), Bybit (138), and Binance (135).

The stablecoin and payments sector ranked second with 392 roles (13.4%). However, Tether alone accounted for 224 (57.1%), and Ripple contributed 104 (26.5%), together making up 83.6% of the sector. This indicates that the current data more reflects concentrated hiring by a few large companies rather than a sector-wide explosion. The situation may change in the second half of the year—as US stablecoin-related legislation progresses, the hiring environment in this sector is expected to undergo a substantial shift.

The market making and trading sector reached 101 roles (3.4%), enough to stand as its own category. Key players include B2C2, GSR, Keyrock, and Wintermute. This category was not separately listed in the 2023 report; its emergence reflects the consolidation of institutional liquidity provision and asset management within crypto infrastructure.

The gaming and NFT sector has dwindled to just 71 roles (2.4%). This sector, which once led hiring during the 2022-2023 GameFi boom, now holds a smaller share than the market making sector.

Current hiring is no longer driven by cyclical bull and bear markets but revolves around sectors emphasizing structural stability: exchanges, payments, and regulatory infrastructure.

The Crypto Hiring Market After AI Adoption

During the same period, the AI industry showed a completely opposite growth trajectory. PwC's 2026 Global AI Jobs Barometer, analyzing over 1 billion job postings across six continents, found that in 2025, US job postings requiring AI-related skills reached approximately 1.12 million, a 66% year-on-year increase, accounting for 2.8% of all job postings.

The crypto industry is also following a similar path. The proportion of crypto job postings mentioning AI skills rose rapidly from 23% in early 2025 to 53.1% in March 2026.

Overall, AI is creating new jobs across various industries, while the crypto market is achieving higher productivity with leaner teams.

The Contraction and Selective Upskilling of the Crypto Hiring Market

The global crypto hiring market has not only contracted in scale, but more importantly, the nature of recruitment has fundamentally changed.

The focus has shifted from marketing to regulatory compliance and infrastructure operations. Roles common in past bull markets, such as promoting tokens and expanding communities, have significantly decreased; meanwhile, demand for roles directly handling operating systems, exchange operations, stablecoin infrastructure, and on-chain risk management has remained stable or even grown.

Conversations with frontline practitioners also confirm this shift. Projects no longer emphasize finding "degen" (decentralized enthusiast) talent. Having passed the early education phase, the blockchain industry now adopts hiring standards as rigorous and demanding as those in traditional finance and fintech.

These changes indicate that the crypto industry has moved beyond its speculative phase and is gradually integrating into the institutional mainstream. The market no longer needs those who craft beautiful narratives, but rather professionals who can truly build and verify reliable infrastructure.