Original | Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)
Author | Golem (@web 3_golem)
Over the past year, more and more Web2 professionals have begun to seriously consider entering Web3.
Whether it's mass layoffs at internet giants, AI restructuring job functions, or the increasing prevalence of the crypto industry, all are driving talent mobility. But at the same time, a practical issue has become increasingly apparent: most people's understanding of the Web3 workplace still comes from fragmented personal experiences and highly polarized public discussions.
Negative labels with high engagement potential, such as instability, non-compliance, and high pressure, often become the mainstream narrative. When information sources are highly scattered, what is truly lacking is systematic sample observation.
Therefore, rather than discussing abstract evaluations, it's better to return to samples. By interviewing Web3 staff and cross-referencing organizational structures and recruitment data, we can present the real working conditions of employees at a Web3 company. This time, we selected Gate as our observation subject. Founded in 2013, as one of the world's leading trading platforms, Gate is both representative in scale and has been at the center of public focus.
When the narrative returns to specific companies, specific roles, and specific people, many judgments naturally become more three-dimensional.
Remote Work: Does Web3 Make Professionals Feel Insecure?
Every weekday morning, Olivia wakes up promptly at 9 AM. She doesn't need to rush for the subway or fight for an elevator, nor does she have to navigate the city's morning rush hour. After a simple wash, she walks to the fresh-air park downstairs, starting her day with 40 minutes of yoga. After a leisurely breakfast, by 10 AM, Olivia sits back in front of her screen, joins the morning team meeting, and reviews the previous day's work with colleagues from around the world, planning for the new day.
Olivia is not a senior executive at a big tech company; she is just an ordinary employee at Gate. Although Gate has nearly 3000 employees globally, it has basically achieved full remote work, with staff distributed all over the world. However, in recent years, Gate has also begun to establish physical offices in licensed regions such as Japan, Dubai, the USA, and Malta, extending online collaboration to offline physical presence.
There is no clock-in/clock-out system, no strict time controls. Although Olivia is in the fast-paced crypto industry, she can still enjoy life at any time. "Gate doesn't care where you work from. You can work while taking care of your children, looking after family, or even while traveling — it's completely fine," said Gate's founder, Dr. Han, in an interview discussing the differences between Web3 and traditional industries.
Remote work is a common mode of operation in Web3. A 2025 crypto industry workplace survey showed that over 66.7% of Web3 companies support remote work.
But remote work is a double-edged sword for employees. While the high degree of freedom certainly brings conveniences, it also makes it more difficult to discern whether a company is reliable.
After all, remote work naturally reduces the "visibility" of an organization. In traditional companies, employees can judge the operational status through daily observation, whereas in a remote environment, this perception is replaced by screens.
If you've never been to the company and never met the boss or colleagues, how do you judge if the company is legitimate? This concern was highlighted in the 2025 crypto industry workplace survey, where over 40% of people cited worries about job instability and the mixed quality of Web3 companies as reasons for leaving Web3.
A direct result of this concern is that talent has begun to cluster towards Web3 companies with long-term vision.
Alex is currently responsible for global mid-office operations at Gate and has just completed one year with the company. Before coming to Gate, he had already spent 6 years in the crypto space. This "lengthy" crypto experience made Alex better at choosing a reliable Web3 company. "Gate has been established for 13 years now, with many employees who have been here for six or seven years, and even some old-timers from the early days with over 12 years of tenure. This is very rare in Web3."
Alex cited one reason for joining Gate as a sense of security: "You don't have to worry that the company is just here to make a quick buck and then run away."
Additionally, the compliance of a Web3 company can also alleviate some of the insecurity brought by remote work and attract high-end talent from traditional finance.
According to official information, as of now, multiple entities under Gate have completed relevant regulatory registrations and license applications in places like Malta, the Bahamas, Japan, Australia, and Dubai.
Gate's active push for compliance attracted Kevin Lee, a high-end talent from the traditional financial industry. Kevin Lee previously worked at JPMorgan Chase Bank and currently serves as Chief Business Officer (CBO) at Gate. Before entering the Web3 industry, Kevin worked in traditional finance for about 15 years.
"Although we only announced last year that we obtained compliance licenses in many countries, we actually started preparing for this as early as 2018," Kevin said, noting that his career path from traditional banking to a compliant exchange aligned perfectly with Gate's goal of advancing compliance. "At Gate, I can maximize my personal value."
But it's true that not everyone adapts well to remote work.
For practitioners accustomed to the rhythm of a physical office, remote work can mean higher demands for discipline. Without fixed working hours and without face-to-face immediate communication, some people feel their rhythm is disrupted, even experiencing a sense of isolation.
Especially during periods of intensive project activity or high industry volatility in Web3, the cost of information synchronization in a remote environment is higher, and employees' anxiety can actually be amplified. Work that originally required collaboration can easily turn into "everyone fighting their own battles."
Therefore, remote work is not only a natural benefit of Web3 but also a work form that demands higher personal capabilities.
Another drawback of remote work is that colleagues in different departments can become overly distant and unfamiliar, weakening team cohesion. To address this issue and bridge the gap between employees from different regions and cultural backgrounds, the 2025 crypto industry workplace survey showed that most people believe that besides frequent meetings, offline team-building activities are also crucial.
But for remote Web3 companies, offline team building is indeed a "luxurious" matter.
Olivia's previous employer was also a remote-work exchange, but during her three years there, she never participated in an offline team building event. However, just two months after joining Gate, she experienced her first one. She was very surprised by this, "This was my first time attending a team building." After the event, Olivia also felt that meeting everyone in person from behind the cold screens indeed helped strengthen relationships significantly. "I feel much more familiar with the team now."
Why is Web3 Becoming a New Hub for Talent?
For many job seekers, before joining a particular industry or company, they prioritize considering the industry/company potential and personal growth opportunities.
According to the latest exchange evaluation report released by CoinDesk, Gate has a global user base of nearly 50 million, ranked third in global centralized exchange market share for spot trading and fourth for derivatives market share in January this year. It was also rated as one of the fastest-growing mainstream trading platforms globally.
A platform with good development potential and in a phase of rapid growth naturally attracts outstanding talent with professional capabilities and a desire for growth.
In terms of talent structure, the Gate team exhibits highly international and highly educated characteristics. 89.33% hold a bachelor's degree or higher, with 22.33% holding a master's degree or higher, and 4.6% holding a doctoral degree or higher. In terms of global educational background, international graduates account for over half, with talent from QS globally top 200 ranked institutions making up 5.2%.
Although Web3 is considered an industry that doesn't treat academic qualifications as a barrier, it still emphasizes rapid learning ability and interdisciplinary integration. High education levels and quality educational backgrounds usually mean that job seekers have a strong foundation of professional training and an international perspective, which matches the open, global nature of the Web3 industry.
Grace is a product designer responsible for the trading business line at Gate. She previously worked at Tencent. After an incubation project she participated in was unsuccessful, she joined a Top 5 crypto exchange in Web3 in 2021. In February 2025, she chose to move to Gate.
The driving force behind Grace's decision was personal development space. "By 2025, the crypto trading business at my previous employer had entered a stable phase, while Gate was still growing strongly. I felt I would have more room to grow at Gate," Grace said, noting that her first contact with Gate's launchpad ("打新") made her realize that compared to other exchanges, Gate's listings were always faster and more comprehensive.
Grace's move to Gate was also influenced by her direct department head at the time, who joined Gate together with her. "At the previous company, we could only focus on immediate tasks and had no time to improve our overall skills. But at Gate, besides completing our work, the company also gives us some space to consolidate experience and broaden our horizons," Grace said, noting this was also an important reason for their decision to join Gate.
We learned from a senior HRBP at Gate that even during the recruitment process, Gate does not place too much emphasis on a candidate's past experience. Instead, self-motivation, passion for the industry, and innovative ability are important factors considered. Therefore, a large number of Web2 talents come to Gate to apply for jobs.
Alex, who has experience working at multiple exchanges, believes there are more growth opportunities in Web3. "Good operations need support from product, development, and other resources. Gate is particularly responsive in this aspect. As long as it's a good idea, the company will give you the opportunity," Alex said, calling this one of the most attractive aspects of Web3.
On a sturdy ship sailing at full speed, sailors are naturally reluctant to move to other vessels. This is the real thought of Web3 employees when faced with headhunters. "In terms of benefits, compensation, and growth opportunities, I think Gate is already very competitive," Olivia said, mentioning that she had just turned down a request from a headhunter in mid-January to stay at Gate.
Are Employee Incentives and Benefits in Web3 Companies Reliable?
Besides industry prospects and personal growth space, salary and benefits are also important factors for job seekers. According to the 2025 crypto industry workplace survey, the overall salary level in Web3 is not higher than that of most leading internet companies. Most people's monthly salaries fall between $1,500 and $4,000 USD (approximately 10,500 - 28,000 RMB).
Although looking at the "absolute value," Web3 salaries don't have a huge advantage, but when combined with "geographic arbitrage," this salary already surpasses that of most people. Don't be fooled by the high salaries of internet workers in big cities—their cost of living is also high. Web3 company employees can earn big-city salaries while living in smaller cities. If you also consider factors like living environment and urban comfort, Web3 employees with equivalent salaries live more comfortably.
In terms of benefits, according to an HR representative at Gate, although Gate employees are spread all over the world, the company still pays taxes and arranges employee benefits according to local laws through entities established in those locations.
In addition to basic statutory employee benefits, Gate has also established its own comprehensive employee support system, such as holiday bonuses distributed to employees in different regions, growth allowances (e.g., certain reimbursement limits for learning English, crypto industry knowledge, etc.); if employees encounter emergencies or accidents, there is also an employee care fund to help them through difficult times.
In terms of year-end bonuses, the Web3 industry is not lagging behind. According to the survey, Web3 companies with stable revenue sources, such as exchanges and media, give year-end bonuses to employees, typically at least 1-3 months' salary.
Specifically for a single company, taking Gate as an example, it is understood that on average, each Gate employee can receive a year-end bonus equivalent to 2~6 months' salary.
Gate founder Dr. Han also announced at the Gate Global Annual Meeting on February 6th that the company would continue to increase incentives for outstanding talent, with the year-end reward for employees receiving an SS rating this year reaching 20 months' salary.
In an interview, an HR representative also mentioned that in terms of talent mechanisms, Gate adheres to the incentive principle of "high effort, high reward." Through more transparent evaluation mechanisms and clear career paths, it promotes a positive cycle between personal growth and platform development, allocating resources with a focus on elite talent utilization and long-term value. Besides year-end bonuses, suitable rewards are also given for employees' significant and minor outstanding contributions and personal growth.
In March 2025, just one month after Grace joined Gate, she was incentivized for her outstanding contribution to the company's 12th-anniversary redesign project. "It feels good to be recognized," Grace said, noting that this kind of incentive is highly aligned with personal value realization.
Alex is also a beneficiary of this incentive mechanism. When Alex joined Gate in February 2025, he happened to catch the launch of a major project. Due to outstanding performance, Alex received a 20% salary increase in less than six months and was also promoted from solely responsible for contract operations to being responsible for multi-sector operations.
Does Web3 Also Have to Be "996"?
Work models like 996 and 007 have been widely criticized in Web2. So, does the Web3 remote work model, without standard working hours, mean "working all the time"?
The work intensity at Gate itself is very high. Being in the exchange sector, "not striving" is not an option. On one hand, the crypto industry is inherently fast-paced; on the other hand, exchanges operate 7*24 hours non-stop, requiring teams to be able to respond to the market at any time.
But from the descriptions of Gate employees, we get one fact: even in such a high-intensity Web3 company, 996 isn't necessarily mandatory.
Objectively speaking, the combination of remote work and the特殊性 of the Web3 industry means no crypto practitioner can truly separate work and life into two distinct parts. Olivia stated that although she usually gets off work between 6-7 PM, if there is related work that needs attention, she is willing to do it. "It's impossible to completely cut off from Web3 after work."
Regarding working hours and freedom in Web3, Kevin, who comes from a traditional finance background, has his own unique insights. Kevin said that when he worked as a stock trader at a bank, he often had to sit at a desk for 10 hours straight staring at 6 computer screens. Compared to that "hardship," although his current daily work at Gate is also very busy, it gives him great flexibility.
"Because daily work offers great personal flexibility, when emergencies arise, even on rest days, I am willing to contribute more to the company," Kevin said, using the example of Trump's token launch, noting that even though it was a Saturday, the entire team, including himself, chose to continue working. However, Kevin believes that the crypto industry doesn't have emergencies every day, so this kind of rapid response cannot be simply categorized as "996."
Gate's results-oriented work style, paired with the "high effort, high reward" incentive principle, also provides precise and substantial rewards for employees' extra efforts.
A Gate HRBP stated that besides industry emergencies, if the platform has new features or new projects launching, the working hours for responsible employees during that period will indeed increase. However, the company will correspondingly arrange special project bonuses and year-end performance倾斜 (倾斜 - qīng xié, meaning tilt/favor/inclination, here likely meaning performance weighting or bias towards these efforts). Therefore, Web3 tends to emphasize "more work, more pay"; blindly stacking working hours is meaningless.
Rather Than Believing Rumors, Experience It Yourself
Although most employees have positive evaluations of Gate, over the past year, there has been no shortage of external criticism towards Gate, such as strict management and large-scale layoffs.
No company can meet everyone's demands, so there will always be positive and negative evaluations. Regarding this, Gate's Chief Business Officer Kevin believes that over the past three years, Gate's organizational changes have been very significant. Along with the rapid business advancement, the number of employees has also expanded extremely quickly, presenting huge challenges for management.
"The first challenge is to increase efforts in promoting the Gate brand image, letting the market understand what the real Gate is like; the second challenge is to increase the dissemination of Gate's organizational culture among employees, simply put, to ensure every employee can represent Gate externally and convey the organizational culture; the third challenge is to further strengthen upward communication and feedback channels for employees, so that managers can hear every employee's voice," Kevin said, adding that Gate is already making improvements in these areas, but this cannot be achieved overnight and requires some time.
Alex said that although the work at Gate is indeed busy, the daily team atmosphere is very relaxed. "In less than a year at Gate, I've stolen over two or three hundred colleagues' emojis from Lark." Olivia said she wasn't influenced by these negative aspects when she joined Web3 either.
Feedback data from Gate's HRBP also confirms that even though there were misunderstandings about Gate's image externally in 2025, key recruitment metrics, such as candidate inquiries and offer acceptance rates, did not show significant downward fluctuations, nor did they affect the progress of the company's overall recruitment work.
It is understood that Gate's 2025 recruitment completion met expectations. Thousands of new people were hired across junior, mid-level, and senior positions, completing an iteration of talent quality to support the company's new business development. Meanwhile, the position elimination rate in 2025 was also between 5-10%.
In fact, even within Web3, Gate's personnel change rhythm is relatively stable. According to Gate founder Dr. Han's recollection in an interview, during the major industry layoffs in mid-2022, many exchanges laid off 20%, 30%. At that time, Gate only laid off about 5%. Dr. Han stated that Gate has never been a company of "dramatic expansions and contractions." Whether in recruitment or personnel adjustments, it adheres to a cautious and gradual pace.
However, 2026 may usher in a larger wave of layoffs, both in Web3 and other fields, not because of a bear market, but because of AI.
On February 27th, financial technology company Block, under Twitter (now X) founder Jack Dorsey, announced a large-scale layoff plan, reducing the total number of employees from over 10,000 to less than 6,000, a layoff rate of 40%. Jack Dorsey stated that the reason for this decision was that AI has already given rise to a completely new way of working. Rather than passively accepting change and slowly laying off people over the next few months or years, it's better to actively seek change now.
The scenario predicted some time ago in the wildly popular article "2028 Global Intelligence Crisis," which garnered over 30 million reads, is happening in reality. As AI is integrated into enterprise workflows, corporate profit margins expand, profits far exceed expectations, stock markets soar, but a large number of white-collar workers will be淘汰 (eliminated).
Gate founder Dr. Han also believes that up to 90% of traditional job competency models will face the risk of being restructured or淘汰 by AI in the future. Therefore, efficiency and speed are becoming core competitiveness. Enterprises must fully embrace AI and reshape product forms and user experience. However, the combination of AI and Web3 is not a simple functional叠加 (overlay), but a systematic restructuring of financial infrastructure and value distribution methods.
This "intelligence crisis" is not something Web3 faces alone; it is a transformation the entire tech industry must confront. But Web3's characteristics of rapid evolution, open culture, and technology-driven nature are naturally suited for AI integration. In a sense, Web3 might be one of the few fields in this era that is not replaced by AI but can instead experience a new round of employment红利 (dividend/benefit) empowered by AI.
Gate is not only a microcosm of the Web3 industry but also a standard case study of a Web3 company. As an exchange still in a phase of rapid expansion, just like the entire Web3 industry, Gate's growth is destined to be accompanied by controversy, misunderstanding, and noise.
But small flaws cannot obscure great virtues. Employees within Gate know what the real Gate looks like, and they know what a real Web3 workplace looks like. Rather than hesitating and踌躇 (wavering) as an outsider, it's better to personally join a Web3 company and "see for yourself."
