Crypto Salaries Drop Across All Roles Despite Bitcoin Rally – Only 10% Of Jobs Are Entry-Level

What Happened

Entry-Level Workers Hit Hardest as Executive Pay Climbs

Entry-level positions accounted for only 10% of total roles, with these junior employees bearing the brunt of cuts through lower salaries and reduced token packages.

Senior and principal-level positions comprised the largest share at 37%, while engineering remained the dominant function, accounting for roughly 67% of total headcount.

Market Context

Crypto salaries and token incentives declined across nearly all roles and regions in 2024 and early 2025 despite Bitcoin’s record-breaking rally, according to Dragonfly Capital’s latest compensation report released on Thursday.

The survey compiled data from 85 companies and approximately 3,400 employee and candidate datapoints collected in late 2024 and Q1 2025, revealing what researchers called “a down market” with compensation practices “still relatively immature compared to traditional sectors.”

Why It Matters

Compensation drove 83% of declines, split between compensation below expectations at 44% and better competing offers at 39%.

Details

The report found that only meaningful increases came at the executive level, creating what Dragonfly described as “a barbell effect” most visible across product and engineering roles.

International engineering executives out-earned U.S. peers for the first time, with total compensation ranging from $530,000 to $780,000, driven by token packages approaching 3%.

Product Management executives posted the highest salary of any role, between $390,000 and $484,000.

However, mid-level roles experienced flat growth while entry-level positions absorbed the steepest cuts, concentrating gains at the top while most of the workforce saw stagnating or shrinking pay.

The pullback contrasts sharply with earlier hiring booms documented in mid-2025, when crypto job postings surged 60% year-over-year according to CryptoJobs data.

A separate Taurex study from July showed the US topping the global list with 292 active job listings and an average salary of $148,100, while the UAE offered the second-highest average at $111,483.

Founder Compensation Surges While Entry-Level Positions Contract

Average founder salaries increased approximately 37% year-over-year, rising from $144,000 in 2023 to $197,000 in 2024/25.

Seed-stage U.S. founders held the highest equity ownership at 32%, while token ownership at Seed remained consistent across geographies at 9%.

At Series A, international founders earned higher salaries at $244,000 compared to U.S. founders at $198,000, though U.S. founders held more tokens at 13% versus 9%.

Bonus usage declined with company scale, peaking at the smallest company sizes of one to five employees and early stages, especially among companies with $5 million to $19.9 million in funding.

CeFi had the highest bonus adoption at 71%, while DeFi adoption sat at 50%. Infrastructure, Layer 1, and Layer 2 adoption was lower between 15% and 30%.

The report found hiring momentum was stable or increasing for the majority of companies, with 50% stable and 47% increasing.

Engineering-led growth with about 78% of teams expanding and only 1% cutting.

However, hiring speed averaged 3.8 weeks, involving about four interview steps, with 68% of offers accepted.

Geographic Shift Sees Asia Double Hiring Share as Remote Work Dominates

Western Europe remained the dominant international hiring hub, with 84% of Series B through E companies employing people there.

However, Asia’s presence nearly doubled year-over-year, rising from 20% to 41%.