Crypto recruitment. How is hiring in crypto and Web3 different?

The crypto job market is growing again, but hiring looks different today than it did during the previous boom. According to Coincub’s Web3 Jobs Report 2025, 66,494 new Web3 and crypto roles appeared globally in 2025, 47% more than a year earlier. At the same time, the market remains well below its 2022 peak and is far more selective.

This growth needs to be viewed with caution. Data from the first months of 2026 shows a clear slowdown – the number of new vacancies on major job boards fell by nearly 80% year over year in January 2026 (Tiger Research, H1 2026 Global Crypto Hiring Market Analysis). The crypto job market is not returning to the “hire everyone” mode seen in 2025. On the contrary, it is becoming increasingly selective. What is interesting, however, is which job categories are holding up best. Among active vacancies in the first half of 2026, engineering accounted for 34.1%, while compliance and legal represented 10.4%, placing second in the ranking. In other words, the market is contracting, but the two categories covered in this article remain the most resilient.

This is particularly visible in Europe. MiCA brought crypto-asset service providers under a single regulatory framework, and the maximum transitional period for companies previously operating under national regulations ended on 1 July 2026. Product development requirements are therefore now accompanied by AML/CFT obligations, ICT security, operational resilience and rules governing crypto-asset transfers. As a result, crypto companies are building not only technology teams. They increasingly need specialists who can combine financial and regulatory expertise with an understanding of blockchain technology.

In this respect, fintech recruitment is a natural point of reference, but crypto adds another layer of specialisation. Depending on the role, a candidate may need practical knowledge of wallets, custody, on-chain infrastructure or smart contracts. Experience in traditional IT or financial services can therefore be highly valuable, but it cannot always be transferred directly into a crypto company.

What does the crypto job market look like in 2026?

Data from the first half of 2026 provides the most up-to-date picture of who crypto companies are actually hiring. Tiger Research analysed 2,932 active vacancies as of June 2026, and the conclusions are clear: engineering accounted for 34.1% of all roles, while compliance and legal represented 10.4%, making it the second-largest category. Notably, compliance and legal were not even tracked separately in the 2023 edition of the report. Within three years, the category grew to account for one in every ten crypto recruitment vacancies.

The trend is even more pronounced among exchanges. Of the 904 vacancies published by exchanges, compliance and legal accounted for 16%, while business development and sales represented just 6.7%. Exchanges now hire 2.4 times as many people for regulatory functions as they do for business expansion. The sector breakdown is equally telling: centralised exchanges (30.8%) and stablecoins and payments (13.4%) together generate almost half of all vacancies, while gaming and NFTs account for just 2.4%. Remote work remains the norm, with 40.2% of active vacancies offering remote roles.

The second half of the year began with a stronger wave of layoffs. According to the CryptoJobsList layoff tracker, twelve crypto companies announced cuts or restructuring in July 2026 alone, affecting 894 disclosed roles, while total layoffs across the industry in 2026 exceeded 7,000. Luno is cutting around 20% of its global workforce, while BitMEX – one of the most influential derivatives exchanges in the industry’s history – announced that it would shut down completely in September 2026. A shift towards AI is increasingly cited as the reason for these reductions. Kraken stated this explicitly, Coinbase is building smaller, “AI-native” teams after eliminating 500 roles, and Crypto.com reduced its workforce by 12% for the same reason.

For recruiters, the practical conclusion is that the market is not simply shrinking – it is consolidating. Companies are hiring fewer people for more precisely defined roles, and two areas remain the most resistant to cuts: engineering and compliance. Stablecoins and payments are also growing following MiCA’s full implementation, as greater regulatory clarity attracts capital and new teams.

Why is crypto recruitment different from traditional IT recruitment?

In crypto, a job title often reveals less than it would in traditional IT. A “blockchain developer” could be someone working on smart contracts, an exchange backend, wallet infrastructure or solutions supporting a specific blockchain. Each of these areas requires a different skill set and involves a different level of responsibility.

Technical roles illustrate this clearly. An exchange processing a large number of transactions will look for experience in scalable and secure transaction systems. A company developing custody solutions will prioritise asset security and key management, while a DeFi protocol will require expertise in designing and securing smart contracts. These are all technology roles, but experience gained in one environment cannot always be transferred directly to another.

The same applies outside engineering. A Product Manager developing a Web3 application may focus primarily on the product and user behaviour, while someone working at a regulated CASP must also account for compliance and security requirements, as well as how client assets are handled. In AML, risk or legal roles, knowledge of traditional finance provides an important foundation, but it must be supplemented by an understanding of on-chain transfers, custody and the crypto-asset market.

This is why the number of years spent “in crypto” says relatively little about a candidate’s actual fit. What matters far more is the product they worked on, the responsibilities they held and the problems they solved. A well-prepared brief should therefore start with the scope of responsibility, followed by the relevant technologies and the expected number of years of experience.

In practice, the crypto talent market can be divided into three main areas:

• Technology roles – blockchain and protocol engineers, smart contract developers, with Solidity and Rust among the most sought-after technologies, backend engineers working with blockchain infrastructure, security engineers, DevOps/SRE specialists, and cryptography or ZK engineers. 
• Regulatory and risk roles – compliance, AML/KYC, sanctions, legal, risk, information security, operational resilience and positions responsible for regulatory relations. 
• Product and commercial roles – product, operations, business development, institutional sales, partnerships, customer success, marketing and community roles, where knowledge of the technology alone is not enough without an understanding of how the market works. 

In technical roles, a CV is only the starting point

Crypto is one of the technology sectors in which part of a candidate’s experience can be verified beyond their CV. Public repositories, open-source contributions, pull requests, project documentation and activity within a specific ecosystem often reveal much more than a list of technologies on LinkedIn.

This does not mean that hiring decisions should be based on the number of commits. The point is to review a real project with the candidate. A strong technical interview should establish what the person actually designed, which decisions they were responsible for and what happened to the solution after deployment.

This also matters because the market increasingly rewards more than a stated interest in Web3. The Web3.Career Intelligence Report 2025 was based on more than 80,000 vacancies from over 15,900 companies. Its authors highlight the growing importance of public “proof of work” – code, case studies or other verifiable work outcomes – particularly in the most competitive job categories.

From a recruitment perspective, this means that effective sourcing requires more than searching LinkedIn. GitHub, communities built around specific ecosystems and people who are active in open-source projects can be just as important as traditional recruitment databases.

How MiCA changed crypto companies and the talent they need

The biggest change affecting non-technical roles comes from regulation. The maximum transitional period under MiCA ended on 1 July 2026. As ESMA explains, companies that had previously provided crypto-asset services under national rules could continue operating only until that date or until their MiCA authorisation was granted or refused, whichever came first. This means that firms serving EU clients now need teams capable of translating MiCA requirements into day-to-day compliance, risk and operational processes.

It is no coincidence that compliance and legal became the second-largest category in the Tiger Research data at the same time. In a market that only a few years ago focused primarily on product development and user acquisition, an increasing share of resources is now being directed towards functions that enable companies to operate legally and securely.

This has a direct impact on recruitment. A company may find an excellent AML Officer from banking or the payments sector, but knowledge of traditional financial processes alone will not always be enough. In crypto, that person must also understand how on-chain transfers, custody and self-hosted wallets work, as well as the risks specific to crypto-assets.

On the other hand, requiring several years of direct crypto experience for every compliance role may unnecessarily narrow the candidate pool. It is far more important to establish which areas of knowledge are essential from day one. An experienced AML specialist can learn the specifics of blockchain analytics relatively quickly. A lack of practical experience in conducting investigations, assessing customer risk or designing a compliance process within a regulated organisation is much harder to overcome.

We applied the same logic in our analysis of compliance recruitment in fintech – the more regulation and technology overlap, the less realistic it becomes to look for someone who will be an expert in every area from their first day.

For some roles, competence is already a regulatory requirement

MiCA affects more than the number of people hired in compliance. For certain roles, the regulation directly addresses employee knowledge. In July 2025, ESMA published draft criteria for assessing the knowledge and competence of people who provide clients with information or advice on crypto-assets on behalf of a CASP. The final version was adopted on 28 January 2026. The guidelines cover not only formal qualifications, but also practical experience, knowledge of crypto-asset and cybersecurity risks, and the regular updating of employees’ knowledge.

The final guidelines also make CASPs responsible for ensuring that employees know and understand their internal MiCA compliance procedures. They will apply from 28 July 2026 – a specific date that clients planning to recruit or retrain customer service teams should be made aware of. People providing advice should also have a higher level of knowledge than employees who only provide information.

This has practical implications for HR teams. In some recruitment processes, assessing whether a candidate knows the product and communicates well with clients is not enough. The company should understand how it will verify the competence required for a given function and how that knowledge will subsequently be kept up to date.

How to recruit in the crypto industry

The biggest mistake in crypto recruitment is trying to find one person who combines comprehensive technical, industry and regulatory experience from the outset. For the most specialised roles, such a profile may be extremely rare or simply outside the company’s budget. The process should therefore begin by separating critical skills from those that can be developed after hiring.

In practice, the approach will vary by role:

• Technical roles – experience in security, architecture or systems that handle real assets is critical. Knowledge of a specific ecosystem, such as Solidity for EVM smart contracts or Rust for Solana and protocol infrastructure, can be developed relatively quickly. 
• Compliance and legal roles – strong practical experience in AML and regulated environments matters more than several years spent exclusively in crypto. An experienced specialist can learn the specifics of blockchain analytics faster than they can make up for a lack of regulatory practice. 
• Product and commercial roles – an understanding of how the crypto-asset market operates matters, not just knowledge of the technology. 

The assessment process should follow the same principle. Instead of adding more stages, it is better to evaluate the area that will genuinely determine success in the role. A technical candidate should be able to walk through a real project and justify their decisions, while a compliance candidate should be able to handle a specific case involving a client, transaction or risk. Speed matters too – experienced specialists still have options, and long gaps between stages make it easy to lose them.

For more complex roles, it may be worth working with a recruitment partner that understands the market. The most difficult searches usually involve candidates who combine several areas, such as MiCA and operational compliance, security and custody, or experience in transaction infrastructure. In these cases, the key is not simply to provide CVs, but to assess which skills can be transferred from fintech or banking and where direct experience with crypto-assets is essential. HR Contact supports such recruitment processes across international markets.

Summary

Crypto recruitment is maturing alongside the industry itself. Following the job market rebound in 2025, companies are hiring again, but far more cautiously than they did a few years ago. They primarily look for people who can take responsibility for a specific area of technology, product or a regulated process. Data from the first half of 2026 shows that technical and compliance roles are the most resilient amid the overall contraction in vacancies.

This changes how recruitment processes should be run. For technical positions, verifiable proof of work and production experience matter more. In compliance, employers need to assess not only a candidate’s knowledge of financial regulation but also their ability to apply it in the specific environment of crypto-assets. In both cases, an overly broad brief leads to a search for a candidate who knows everything – and often does not exist. For companies operating in the EU, MiCA adds another layer: they need people who can translate regulatory requirements into practical processes across compliance, risk and operations.

The most effective processes therefore begin by clearly identifying which skills are critical from day one and which can be developed after hiring. Only then does it make sense to choose the target market, sourcing channels and candidate assessment method.

If you are building a crypto, Web3 or fintech team and need support defining the profile or reaching the right specialists, talk to HR Contact.

FAQ

Do candidates need direct industry experience to work at a crypto company? 

Not always. For technical and compliance roles, hiring someone with strong experience in an adjacent field, such as fintech, banking or cybersecurity, and developing their crypto-specific knowledge after they join is often more effective than looking for a candidate who has worked exclusively in Web3 for many years.

Do crypto companies operating in the EU need MiCA authorisation?

Yes. Following the end of the transitional period on 1 July 2026, companies need the relevant CASP authorisation to continue providing crypto-asset services in the EU.

Which skills are most in demand in crypto recruitment in 2026?

According to Tiger Research data from the first half of 2026, engineering roles remain the strongest category, accounting for 34.1% of active vacancies. This includes smart contract developers familiar with Solidity and Rust. Compliance and legal roles represent 10.4%, despite the overall contraction in the number of new vacancies.

How does recruiting an AML Officer for fintech differ from recruiting for a crypto company?

The foundation of financial regulation and AML process knowledge is similar, but crypto adds another layer: understanding on-chain transfers, custody, self-hosted wallets and the risks specific to crypto-assets.