We’re Fixing the Money, So Why Aren’t We Getting Paid?

If you’re reading this, you’d probably like a job in Bitcoin. Getting paid to help fix the world's money is a noble dream, right? It could pay your bills AND be your legacy.

But why dedicate your time to working in Bitcoin? Seriously… why do you want a Bitcoin job?

• Is it because you believe you can explain Bitcoin so brilliantly, you, and only you, can orange pill the world?
• Is it because you identify as a radical cypherpunk and have built the one killer integration that will protect the network from ruin?
• Is it because you can’t wait to tell your dickish boss you are quitting so you can work for the best money ever?

Just imagine it. You wake up, log in to X, and write your daily post. It goes viral and breaks the internet. The Bitcoin price rockets. Central banks crumble. We move to a Bitcoin standard, and humanity flourishes. All thanks to you.

But wait. It’s not that easy.

In fact, there are millions of hard-working eager bitcoiners just like you. They publish guides, articles, and courses. They offer consultancy services and try to solve real-world problems. They vibe-code apps and invest months and months into communities and passion projects.

What makes you think you’d do it any better? What makes you think you deserve to get paid?

If you work in the fiat world, you still have the thrill of converting as much of your economic energy to Bitcoin as you want. You get to see one world shrink as another grows.

Those fully in Bitcoin feel trapped. We live in a bubble: Satoshi’s echo chamber filled with hopium and dank memes.

And why on Earth would you want to relinquish the cheap credit and inflated value of fiat? Bitcoin is terrifyingly honest. There is no faking it here. Crypto may be full of bad actors, but at least some of them are getting rich.

If you think you can clock in to your remote Bitcoin workstation to fix some bugs in the code or take a few video calls while cashing a $15,000 monthly salary, forget it.

Here’s a reality check from someone who has been working in the Bitcoin space since 2022: Working in Bitcoin sucks.

There are No Jobs in Bitcoin

Yes, I’ve heard of Bitcoinerjobs. There are job listings. The lucky few from tens of thousands of applicants might land a job at Blockstream, Strike, or Mara. But consider the paradox that an ecosystem which aims to swallow the majority of capital in the world and become the default financial system currently offers fewer than a thousand roles per year. That’s less than the number of public sector workers in a mid-sized European village.

These meagre openings usually fall into just a few categories: software, finance, mining operations, compliance. If you currently work in HR, marketing, procurement, administration, or any other white-collar departments, you'll be left out in the cold. Plus, only 50% of advertised roles in Bitcoin are actually remote, and many of those roles still require US residence.

Add in nepotism, bias towards known faces and big social media accounts, and what chance do plebs have of landing a Bitcoin job? Virtually none.

Further, most Bitcoin jobs are not jobs. Startups and even established bitcoin-native companies employ freelancers, requiring them to figure out medical insurance, sick pay, vacations, pensions, and other benefits on their own. That’s a lot of fiat comfort to give up.

Let’s say you take one of these full-time freelance ‘jobs’. What happens if they rug you after 6 months? Projects fail, even the ones with good intentions. Those with mortgages, families, and high living costs will have to risk everything for a shot at a Bitcoin dream.

Most people I know that work in Bitcoin are entrepreneurs or freelancers with multiple retainer clients. That way, they have some kind of guaranteed income and can pivot and survive if a working relationship suddenly comes to an end.

Unless you already have experience with networking, outreach, onboarding new clients, delivering constant value, justifying your retainer, and managing your communication channels, freelancing can be overwhelming.

You’re probably used to doing your 40-50 hours in the office and complaining that your manager won’t accept your expense receipts from Starbucks any more.

Here’s a rough idea of what it takes to get Bitcoin companies to pay you:

• Build extensive online profiles and clarify exactly what it is you offer
• Network online and meet a ton of people who try to pitch you their business idea
• Wade through shitcoiner scams and navigate the invisible line of purity that makes it OK to work for companies (or not)
• Spend your hard earned cash on flights, hotels, and conference tickets in order to have conversations that end with a handshake and ‘We’ll be in touch when we get funding’
• Work for free — recording podcasts, publishing posts, building a community, putting together plans or strategies for prospects
• Constantly pitch to prospective clients, even when you have a full workload

How does all that sound? Still want to give up your 9 to 5?

Doing the Work

Working with bitcoiners is a dream. Honestly. They say what they’ll do, and they do what they say.

Everyone has the incentive to complete the job quickly and to a high standard. It is truly incredible how much wasted time and effort exist in fiat jobs. You have very little reason to deliver value day after day. After all, your boss will just take the credit, forward you more emails, and will likely deny your promotion and pay raise at the end of the year. They want to keep you poor.

The Bitcoin community, on the other hand, is supportive and will cheer you on. I’ve had incredible feedback, gratitude and support with the clients I’ve worked with over the years.

The downside of working within Bitcoin isn't the people. Those who are building freedom are proven to be of sound mind and spirit.

However, there are multiple drawbacks.

Remember, Bitcoin freelancers work with no security and lower pay than in other industries.

Don’t believe me? Compare the benefits and salary of a role in finance, sales, or even the public sector to Bitcoin pay. Bitcoin pay blows (we’ll get to why later).

As a writer, I’ve found myself having to expand into other areas of business in Bitcoin, even though Bitcoin is in dire need of content that speaks to those outside the walls of our meme-filled castle.

Founders and companies who work with Bitcoin freelancers are time-starved. They might think that lengthy op-eds, a weekly newsletter, and 12 SEO friendly guides will bring them partners and investors, but they have no one to help edit, publish and distribute the content.

Outside of large mining companies and exchanges, very very few companies in Bitcoin have more than half a dozen core team members. No social media specialist, no content manager, no PR department. I spend more time chasing (begging) founders to publish what I’ve written than I do dreaming up ideas for them.

My work for some teams expands to community building, marketing strategy, video editing, podcasts, social growth, analytics, gathering customer feedback, and more. In the early years of Bitcoin, everyone must be a jack of all trades. Everyone must fill in the gaps for free.

Oh, and in case you think working for a particular Bitcoin product or service fits your expertise, think again. You’ll have to travel down constant rabbit holes and commit to hours of learning (and unlearning) per week just to stay abreast of news cycles and areas of technology you never thought you’d have to worry about. Payments, security, hardware, e-commerce, software, privacy, you name it. The courses, books, and lectures are never ending.

Bear Markets will Starve You

So you’ve made it this far. You’ve worked with a good mix of Bitcoin clients. Maybe you even made ends meet for a while.

But wait. Uh oh. Here comes the bear market!

Other industries (fertiliser manufacturing, life insurance, horse dentistry) don’t suffer 80% drawdowns every few years. Bitcoin does.

Your clients will drop you like a hot potato during a bear market. What little runway they had will be gone in a few months.

Around 30-50% of staff (who are more likely glorified freelancers) will be axed. Just look at what happened at Coinbase and Block.

Projects and clients start drying up. No one is hiring. No one is selling anything (apart from their bitcoin). Conferences are quiet. Even the Bitcoin press struggles to find new narratives to prop up its business model.

And you, as a Bitcoin ‘employee’ are left with dwindling income and savings worth half what they were last year. That’s right. Being paid in Bitcoin swells your chest during the good times, but converting your hard-earned sats into Bitrefill Carrefour vouchers to buy your groceries hurts like hell when your cart costs double what you paid last summer.

Balancing commitments (rent, tax, bills) becomes a constant worry. If you don’t leave enough fiat in your account, you’ll spend months going in circles with payment portals or government websites.

Living on a Bitcoin standard is hard at the best of times. I've schlepped a cross town to eat in the one cafe that accepts sats more times than I care to remember.

You start to feel jealous of your friends with ‘real’ jobs, perhaps even nostalgic about your old life, you know, the easy one that you complained about 24/7. Social media tells you how well your peers are doing. If you'd stayed in marketing, you might be a director by now. Suddenly, friends you haven’t heard from in years ask if you are OK? They tell you they heard a guy called Matthew Sailor is running a gigantic Bitcoin Ponzi scheme, and you should get out as fast as you can. It’s time to come back to reality, buddy.

But you can’t go back.

One single look at the LinkedIn hiring page makes your eyes roll so far back in your head you think you might go permanently blind. You retreat to the safety of X and look at memes which make fun of the only people who have it worse than you… degens and shitcoiners. Their misery is the only thing that quells your persistent migraine.

There is no return. Ever. After working in the free economic zone of Bitcoin, you’ve lost all of your core fiat skills:

• Being able to hold your tongue and not call out wasteful practices, protectionism, and fake smiles
• Willfully joining industry circlejerks and corporate backslapping sessions
• Sniffing your own productivity farts and believing that the smell will be your ever-lasting legacy

You’ll just have to ride it out. Bear markets only last 12, 18, 24 months, right? Just hold the line and stay positive.

Don’t think about the fact that you only got into Bitcoin in 2021, not 2013, so your stack is significantly less impressive than the guy who allocated 2% of his 401k to Blackrock's Bitcoin ETF last month.

Sleep soundly knowing that Bitcoin protects you from inflation. Yes, that Carrefour voucher is only buying you bread and milk this week, but good news is just around the corner. Dennis Porter says he has a game-changing announcement coming tomorrow!

Where Has all the Money Gone?

Bitcoin has a funding problem, despite being actual money itself. No one is talking about this.

Before we get to the funding gap, I should say that Bitcoin founders and startups are, in fact, at an advantage. With a Bitcoin treasury (and often sales in BTC), they have a longer runway than most Silicon Valley startups.

But the hit rate for businesses (especially those in bleeding-edge tech) is low. The truth is that most Bitcoin businesses fail.

Bitcoin VCs (the big narrative of the 2021 bull market) aim to fund winners. Yes, they take chances on a few left-field ideas, but mostly, they fund banking infrastructure, B2B rails, and major exchanges. If you aim to launch a consultancy, new hardware, e-commerce site (or any B2C venture really), you’ll have to look elsewhere for funding.

Institutions have switched focus to becoming treasury companies.

Whales and Bitcoin OGs are more interested in buying Claude credits and managing OpenClaw Agents than any Bitcoin solutions. AI is the new promised land; Bitcoin is boring.

What about OpenSats or other non profit funds? Well, they have to plug the gaps in Bitcoin infrastructure, Nostr, and freedom tech development. Companies like Strategy certainly aren't paying Bitcoin Core developers. Besides, Jack Dorsey’s pockets are only so deep, and non-profit funding won’t last forever.

Look around for investors, and you’ll likely just find another 2,140 developers building things. No one in Bitcoin is willing to risk their Bitcoin to further the cause of Bitcoin. Sure, you might find a few brave souls who are willing to join your bootstrapped moonshot mission, but you sure as hell won’t find many angel investors.

That means that founders have to pay freelancers from their meagre budget based on their own personal stack. They are bound to look for the cheapest option, not the best one. It’s the only chance they’ve got. The road is long, and it'll be hard for them to convince skilled workers to come along for the poorly paid ride.

Why the Fuck Do We Keep Going Then?

If you think this article is a cry for help, you’re wrong.

All of those who work in Bitcoin grow to accept the bittersweet taste of systemic change. There are good times and bad. This article aims to show both. It's part of open sourcing my reality, which is something that many bitcoiners appreciate and eventually do themselves.

I can honestly say I’ve had the highest highs while working on freedom tech projects which created a positive long-term impact on the world.

There have also been many lows (not just my bank account). Projects abandoned, missed opportunities, failed campaigns, and plenty of ghosting. This ever-shifting landscape feels less like a career and more like rolling and rerolling the dice every day. Maybe those of us who walk away from our old lives are all gamblers at heart.

But we continue anyway. I don’t know a single person who quit Bitcoin for good, but I know hundreds who want to close the door on their fiat lives and start building a free world, never to look back.

In Bitcoin, we pretend we are rational people — node-running, chart-following, cyber-hornet engineers.

We are not always rational. We are humans, not cyber hornets.

The humans of Bitcoin come to understand how much bigger than them, their people, and their time on this planet Bitcoin is, and propagating Satoshi’s principles becomes their mission.

Imagine building a cathedral that you won’t see finished. A monumental task of low time preference. It will be future generations who reap the rewards of your struggles and appreciate the strength of the foundations you laid and the beauty of your craftsmanship. That is a legacy.

Bitcoin can be both energizing and heartbreaking. It can be beautiful and broken. It brings joy and sorrow. It is the cure and the pain.

That’s the duality of fighting for freedom. There is no one true path because bitcoiners don’t measure success in fiat terms; we measure it in real long-term value.

If that aligns with your way of thinking, then I guess you might start working in Bitcoin too. Maybe I’ll see you around, and we can compare notes and reminisce how easy our lives used to be.

And maybe, one day, we will laugh about tortured articles like these.