A comparison of seven outside industry reports with Moledao’s Q2 2026 application data shows two things happening at the same time in the Web3 labor market: the industry is shrinking, yet the job categories with the most openings are not attracting applications at the same pace. At the other end, the functions drawing the heaviest candidate competition often have a much smaller supply of roles.
The original piece was written by Hickerzed and Xunye. It said that more than 40 Web3 companies have cut staff in 2026, with combined layoffs exceeding 7,000 people. Coinbase and Kraken both reduced headcount, and on July 23 BitMEX said it would fully shut down its trading business in September.
Layoffs spread across the sector as the market pulled back
According to CryptoJobsList’s Layoffs Report 2026, Web3 layoffs have topped 7,000 this year. The article said Bitcoin fell from its record high of about $126,200 in October 2025 to a range of $60,000 to $64,000 by the end of July 2026, a drop of nearly half, and the contraction across the industry unfolded almost in parallel.
On May 5, Coinbase said it would lay off about 700 employees, equal to 14% of its workforce. The Block reported that CEO Brian Armstrong described the move in an internal memo as part of an “AI-native” transition. Kraken cut 150 jobs in the same month. On June 23, the Ethereum Foundation cut 54 positions.
The article said the rationale offered in several layoff announcements looked similar: trimming management layers and removing overlapping roles. Coinbase explicitly said it would eliminate “pure manager” positions and shift to a “player-coach” model. Based on those announcements, the adjustments were concentrated more at the organizational level, while core technical roles were affected to a lesser extent.
Hiring demand did not collapse evenly across functions
Tiger Research tracked 2,932 active job postings in the first half of 2026 and found that Engineering was still the largest hiring function, accounting for 34.1% of demand. Compliance/Legal ranked second at 10.4%, and demand in both areas was described as relatively stable. Gaming/NFT roles made up only 2.4%, making that category the sharpest area of contraction.
The article noted that the 34.1% figure comes from Tiger Research’s broader market sample and is not directly comparable with the 46.0% role structure later cited from Moledao’s platform data.
At the same time, AI skills are moving into the mainstream of job requirements. The share of postings that asked for AI skills rose from 23% in early 2025 to 53.1% in March 2026. The article said that figures from CryptoJobsList and Tiger Research support each other on that point. On geography, Tiger Research found that Singapore was one of the more concentrated office-hiring locations in the first half of 2026.
Salaries kept rising, with clear gaps between functions
Gate Research said average pay for global crypto workers rose about 18% in 2026. But the spread across job types remained wide. Quant development engineers could earn as much as $200k, while junior developers were around $77k, close to a threefold gap.
AI skills also carried a visible premium. CryptoJobsList data showed that mid-level AI-related roles paid an average of $115k, compared with $95k for non-AI positions, a difference of 21.1%. The article said the direction of the two data sets matched: demand for AI skills is rising, and the pay premium tied to those skills is also widening.
Moledao data shows a mismatch between job supply and candidate interest
The broader market reports do not answer a practical question on their own: are candidates actually applying to the roles companies post?
Using Moledao’s Q2 2026 data, the authors compared each function’s share of job postings, representing hiring demand, with its share of applications, representing candidate competition. Dividing one by the other produced an application concentration index. A reading above 1 means candidates are relatively concentrated while jobs are relatively scarce. A reading below 1 means candidate attention is lower than job supply, pointing to an actual talent gap. The article added that lower readings for technical roles may partly reflect tougher self-screening by applicants, though it said the directional conclusion remains intact.
On that basis, Engineering stood out as the largest hiring category, with 46.0% of job demand but only 27.1% of applications. Its concentration index was 0.6x, the lowest among major functions and, in the authors’ view, the clearest sign of talent scarcity in the quarter.
Security showed a similar pattern, though less pronounced, with an index of 0.9x. It also sat in the range where candidate attention lagged job supply.
BD, PM, and Compliance/HR/Ops landed on the other side of the divide. BD posted an application concentration index of 2.4x, making it the most crowded direction for candidates. PM came in at 1.4x. Compliance/HR/Ops was 1.2x, a milder level of competition, but its job share still reached 27.9%, making it the largest category outside Engineering. The article said that for employers, categories with higher index readings generally find it easier to attract applicants after roles go live.
Several recruiting agencies made similar observations in their 2026 market commentary. Qualified candidates for specialized technical positions, including security auditors, ZK engineers and Rust developers, remain scarce worldwide. The article said that trend points in the same direction as Moledao’s finding that Engineering attention trails available openings.
Layoffs and shortages describe the same structural shift
The article argued that layoffs and talent shortages are not contradictory. Taken together, they describe the same round of restructuring: the roles being cut are mostly management layers and duplicated functions, while the capabilities companies continue to compete for are specialized technical ones.
That helps explain why Engineering and Security can still show strong hiring demand during a broader industry pullback, while more generalist BD and PM roles are seeing denser application traffic and heavier competition.
What the data suggests for job seekers
The authors said Engineering remains the hottest hiring direction, and candidate attention is relatively weak, meaning actual competitive pressure may be lower than the headline number of openings suggests. But that comes with a condition: applicants need the specialized capabilities the market is asking for now. Security auditing, ZK and Rust were cited as the clearest gaps on the demand side.
BD and PM present a different picture. Openings are limited and candidates are highly concentrated, which makes generic resumes harder to surface. The article said job seekers need to create separation through narrower specialization and verifiable project track records. Recruiters from several firms reported a large quality gap between the strongest and weakest BD and PM candidates in the resumes they receive.
For candidates with backgrounds in Compliance/HR/Ops or Security, the article pointed to a more defined place in the market. Compliance/HR/Ops is the largest non-Engineering hiring function, with a 27.9% job share and a 1.2x application concentration reading, making competition lighter than in BD or PM. Security, at 0.9x, sits in the same under-attended range as Engineering, though the shortage is less severe. These two tracks receive less discussion, but the balance between opportunity volume and competition is relatively favorable, according to the article.
On AI, more than half of job descriptions already include related requirements, and roughly a 20% salary premium is the market’s current pricing signal. The authors said candidates in any direction now need to treat AI capability as part of baseline job preparation.
What the data suggests for employers
The article said that for Engineering roles, posting an opening and waiting for resumes is unlikely to produce enough candidates. Because candidate attention lags supply, active outreach becomes necessary, including recruiters, developer community operations and employee referral incentives.
Security hiring faces a similar issue. Its 0.9x concentration reading is less extreme than Engineering’s, but relying only on passive applications may still leave roles unfilled.
BD and PM naturally attract more applications and can work for employer branding, but screening costs need to be factored in early. The article said high-volume applicant pools often come with wide quality dispersion, so setting screening standards in advance can help employers avoid being overwhelmed by raw application volume.
For Compliance/HR/Ops, the challenge sits more in filtering than in sourcing. This is the largest hiring direction outside Engineering, with a 27.9% job share and a 1.2x application concentration reading. Supply is relatively abundant, applicant counts are high, and quality variance is also large. In that case, the article said, clear selection criteria are more urgent than broader exposure.
It also noted that AI-related requirements already cover 53.1% of job postings. Companies whose job descriptions lag on that point may lose a meaningful share of qualified candidates during the screening stage.
Data notes and sample limits
The article said Moledao’s sample covers Q2 2026, from April through June, based on platform applications and job-posting records, with jobs posted by the platform itself excluded. In the Marketing/Community category, applications tied to a single company connected to the report were further removed to avoid distorting representativeness. The authors said the sample is limited and the conclusions should be read as directional trends only.
External data mainly came from Tiger Research and CoinGecko’s H1 2026 Global Crypto Hiring Market Analysis Report, Gate Research’s Q1 2026 Crypto Employment Trends White Paper, CryptoJobsList’s Layoffs Report 2026 and The 2026 Web3 Workforce Report, Bitget and Blockchain4Youth’s Web3 Next-Gen Talent Intelligence Report, web3.career’s Crypto Salary, and the CoinCup H1 2026 report. The article added that publication dates and statistical methods vary across sources, so specific figures should be treated as directional references only.