Crypto News: Hiring Trends Show 500% Surge in Legal Roles Amid Regulatory Push

Key Insights:

• Legal roles surged 500% in 2024; the fastest-growing category in crypto hiring.
• Engineering still dominates, but marketing and ops saw double-digit growth.
• Remote-first, mission-led crypto jobs now matter more than tokens or job security.

The current crypto hiring cycle is focused on operational depth, not speculative growth. After a prolonged hiring freeze through 2022 and 2023, the market has reopened in 2024–25, but with sharper priorities.

Instead of hiring aggressively for hype-driven expansion, teams are now building for regulatory compliance, cross-functional efficiency, and long-term user retention. This strategic shift is reflected in job roles, with legal, operations, and marketing functions gaining ground.

Legal Roles Are the Fastest-Growing Job Category

While engineers still dominate overall hiring (53% of total placements), legal roles saw a 500% YoY surge: the largest jump across all functions. From global exchanges to L2s and infra startups, teams are expanding legal and compliance teams in anticipation of incoming licensing regimes, disclosures, and regulatory audits.

Legal hires aren’t an afterthought anymore. Startups are actively looking for in-house counsel, compliance leads, and policy advisors, not just to tick boxes, but to stay ahead of changing rules. With licensing, audits, and formal disclosures becoming the norm, legal is no longer a “later” function. It’s part of the build from day one.

Marketing and design roles saw the biggest jump outside engineering, up 110% and 120%, as teams put more focus on user experience and clear communication. Ops roles followed close behind (+60%), with crypto hiring and jobs now geared toward keeping products running smoothly and budgets in check after launch.

While often overlooked, UI/UX talent is now critical for onboarding normie users and unlocking stickier funnels.

Engineering Still Pays the Most, But Preferences Are Shifting

Engineers still pull the biggest salaries in crypto. Rust developers average $218K/year, Solidity devs hit $167K, and Cosmos SDK devs are gaining ground at 23.3% of codebase demand.

But the story is more nuanced:

• Rust’s dominance continues across infra and rollup projects.
• Solidity remains key for DeFi and L1s.
• Cosmos SDK is expanding..
• Golang dropped slightly as the generalist dev supply grew.

The salary spread has narrowed slightly, but top-tier developers still command premiums. Rust, in particular, is becoming the default for rollups and zero-knowledge infra.

Even with legal and marketing roles accelerating, engineering roles remain core but skills are getting more specialized, and pay is consolidating around an execution-ready profile.

Crypto Workers Want Remote Work, Salaries, Not Tokens

A 117-person survey of Web3 professionals shows what talent really wants now:

1. Salary

2. Remote flexibility

3. Company reputation

Token allocations ranked #10, while job security was dead last, indicating a sharp behavioral shift following the FTX collapse and mass layoffs.

What’s notable is that even seasoned operators are de-prioritizing equity-style incentives in favor of real cash and remote flexibility. Founders, too, are adapting, focusing on fewer hires but with clearer value alignment and long-term retention.

Teams are leaner, roles are sharper, and the bar is higher. Legal is no longer a support function; it’s core to go-to-market. Rust engineers and compliant marketers win the biggest checks. And candidates? They’re done chasing tokens; they want trust, not hype. The Web3 workplace of 2025 is smaller, smarter, and finally self-aware.