A new rewards report from Protocol Guild (PG) shows that most Ethereum Core developers work for less than half of what they can earn elsewhere.
The survey draws the most clear picture of how poor Ethereum’s core infrastructure builders are, as it collects responses from 111 of the 190 members of the group spanning 11 organizations.
Research shows that a typical Ethereum Core contributor earns an average of $157,939. This is about 60% below the average market reward offered by competitors of $359,074.
In particular, these developers have little or no incentives for stocks and tokens, while the median competitors offer stock grants of around 7%.
The report further highlighted that nearly 40% of respondents have received final job offers from other companies within the past year, highlighting how competitive the talent market is.
However, many of these core contributors continue to turn down high-paying roles to keep them focused on maintaining their Ethereum network.
Speaking of these numbers, Ethereum developer Phil NGO described “selfless people” and core contributors who work under financial tensions, as they believe in building a financial system that is not dominated by traditional gatekeepers.
According to him:
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“Most people I know are paying money ahead because they believe in something. It’s a world where something is not controlled by the Tradfi status quo, and nobody, a group of cartelized people, can change the system.”
Ethereum risks
However, the report warned that this decline poses long-term risks to blockchain networks.
The report states that Ethereum’s technical roadmap relies on maintaining first-class talent, but the lack of competitive rewards threatens both retention and execution.
Several industry experts share this view and point out that Ethereum is the second largest blockchain network and plays an important role in the evolution of the financial industry.
Given this important role, they pointed out that developers should be adequately compensated to avoid putting Ethereum’s “reliable neutrality” in danger.
Ngo said:
“I sincerely agree that it is not acceptable to pay half the market rate of comparable engineers to literally lively and decentralize our $400 billion network.”
Legal expert Gabriel Shapiro agreed, arguing that developers should share the benefits of the network they secure.
As a result, he proposed paying partially the contributors in a locked ETH, emphasising it.
“Relying on the next tier to donate tokens to the Protocol Guild is not a strategy.”