Crypto salaries averaged $182k in 2025 - Tech hovered around $120k for most of the same period. It's easy to explain that gap as a risk premium. You're taking a bet on a volatile industry, so you get paid more. Made sense for a while. But now the crypto companies paying the highest are profitable exchanges, stablecoin issuers and infrastructure firms that aren't going anywhere. They're competing directly with TradFi and fintech for the same engineers, the same compliance leads, the same quant traders. and they're winning. Teams are leaner too. Fewer hires, higher expectations, bigger packages. senior Rust engineers averaged $215k. Quant roles sat above that. The full breakdown is in our 2026 State of Crypto Hiring Report →