The main aspect of any business is finance. When it comes to digital disruption, finance is a favourite target too. That is why blockchain has been a key component of finance-technology use cases. Today, the number of independent workers and freelancers are increasing at an exponential rate. However, one key issue that is often coming up is the difficulty in getting paid on time. Most of the issues are due to transactional side problems, changing cross-border fees, and client-worker miscommunication. But, the blockchain technology provides the best solution by decentralizing all processes. This reduces bottlenecks across all transactions. Similarly, there are a lot of advantages of blockchain for the blockchain gig economy freelancers. Let’s take a look at these.

A better method of payment for both parties

The blockchain was actually designed to develop a secure method for financial transactions. It allows entry of payments and fund transfers in the form of blocks into a digital chain. The negligible fees involved in blockchain payments is another advantage.

Besides, cryptocurrencies also allow payments without worrying about exchanging fiat currencies. Traditional transactions have remittance fees ranging up to 20% and cryptocurrency fees range from 0.05 – 0.25%. Also, blockchain helps in codifying the agreements between the contractors and clients. Further, cryptocurrency transactions with their lower fees benefit both freelancers and clients.

Lower middleman fees

Today, blockchain applications are becoming more and more popular. In fact, they are threatening the middlemen all over the economy. This is because blockchain aids users to interact directly with each other via a protocol. With a decentralized service, the role of middleman becomes useless. From international money transfers to online advertising, blockchain applications are ousting middlemen out of the market.

A perfect example is the Openbazaar that has 0% fees on all transactions of its Bitcoin online marketplace.  Moreover, several new blockchain freelance platforms are promising 0–1% fees on their platforms too.

Proof of work and protection of intellectual assets

Most of the freelancers face a lot of issues while working from different countries. One of these issues is the unnecessary control over their work product. Besides, clients also control their proof of work that they have actually completed their tasks. However, blockchain helps in getting rid of all these problems.

Blockchain helps to enter data into blocks, with the freelancer’s profile and real work examples. The best benefit of blockchain is that it permanently stores all the data in the chain. If any freelancer wants to change or add to the existing things, they can do it easily. They can actually add extra data into new blocks.

Copyright and intellectual property rights area which will not be problems with blockchain. Freelancers may want sole rights to their work products or wish to prove that they were the creators. Blockchain helps to codify the product’s creation with the time of creation too. Thus, freelancers will have well-established ownership rights that can’t be tampered with.

Tokens and smart contracts for new incentives

With blockchain applications, you can tokenise anything and everything. However, trust is the biggest issue that employers and freelancers face on the current platforms today. Also, many employers and freelancers don’t treat others fairly. This affects the whole system negatively. Besides, crypto-tokens and smart contracts can help to incentivize everyone. It can aid by working a clever way to act fairly and professionally at all times.

One such example is the Ethearnal that is tokenizing reputation. This company gives a real market value on its freelance platform. In fact, it can give a blow to your reputation as well as your wallet. Thus, it is a win-win situation for both freelancers and employers.

Further, the benefit of decentralization is that it helps in achieving fairer and distributed dispute resolution. This leads to better contract outcomes, accurate ratings, and less centralized authoritarian control.

Benefits for freelancers and employers

Both freelancers and employers benefit from the blockchain technology in many ways. Blockchain gig economy can solve the major issues for freelancers. Let’s take a look at how freelancers get the full benefit of the blockchain.

• They get cash in their wallets faster than ever before.
• They can either increase profits and reduce their rates too for being more competitive.
• Tokenized reputation means that the better reputation you have, the more money you earn. Also, clients always have something on the line.
• Decentralized control leads to a safer business. Thus, income can’t be unfairly held, hostage.

While most of the benefits are for freelancers, they also affect employers directly. Blockchain can make their work easier in many ways. Also, payments won’t be a headache anymore. Apart from this, employers can also get quality freelancers. Let us see how.

• Employers can have less at stake especially when the centralized authority decides to change anything or intervene.
• There are some indirect benefits too. This is the 15–20% reduction in fees that will urge freelancers to reduce their rates to stay competitive. This will lead to the availability of cheaper freelancers. Moreover, if the blockchain platforms are better for freelancers, employers can attract the best freelancers.
• Blockchain platforms run in a more efficient manner by leveraging smart contracts and tokenized incentives. This is an added advantage for employers because it would lead to less risk when hiring freelancers. Also, freelancers will produce only higher quality work.

Blockchain Solutions for freelancers

Openbazaar

Openbazaar.org is a general online marketplace. Here, anyone can sell anything peer-to-peer, using cryptocurrencies. They also found that a decentralized network actually works without central control. Besides, privacy and anonymity were the main motivations for Openbazaar. Moreover, the sole reasons for their success were in the support of the community and staff.

CanYa.io

CanYa is a blockchain-based freelance platform that follows decentralisation for everything.  From payments and governance to storage, almost everything is decentralised by CanYa. In fact, both digital and in-home freelancer services are available on this platform.  However, the main selling points of CanYa include simplicity and low fees. Moreover, you can find, book and even rate service providers. Also, if you want to buy real-world services, you can use the CanYaCoin too. The low fees at only 1% that gets converted into rewards is also another benefit. It actually encourages growth and helps in understanding the desired user behaviour.

Signing off…

More and more people are opting for freelancer jobs today. Also, the global freelance marketplace is huge. But, it also has many inefficiencies. Users struggle with high fees and slow payments. They also suffer from low work quality and dishonest employers.  Blockchain can ruin the careers of middlemen in mere seconds. But, this powerful decentralized structure can be beneficial for both employers and freelancers. In fact, the decentralized solutions of blockchain make the marketplace better for everyone. Freelancers and employers can even change their way of doing things. But, will they be able to pull off this new technology well?