Show HN: CryptoTask – a 0% fee freelance platform powered by blockchain | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: CryptoTask – a 0% fee freelance platform powered by blockchain

about.cryptotask.org

134 pointsVukT113 comments

For me as a freelancer the fundamental question was always: "how much money will be in my bank account when I take this job". Yes there is risk of non payment and hidden fees that I don't anticipate but the main driver was the rate of the gig.

I was not able to find that information on the platform looking at the jobs tab. Most of the value was "negotiable".

But leaving that aside, it seems that "value" is not what will be in my bank account.

And from the overview it seems like the fee is only 3% which implies I get to keep 97% of the money. But further down there is a diagram that puts "70%" next to "Freelancer" so I'm not even sure how much percent of a job I get.

We are about to resolve content quality issues in future updates. CryptoTask platform would take 0% if you don't use escrow system, giving you 100% of completed task value. If you decide to use an escrow system, platform would take 3% from total task value. About 70% - There's affiliate system, which allows for freelancer who can't find a job themselves, rely on a headhunter type of users, who'd connect freelancer with a client. 10% from the total task value goes to the platform, where 20% of the task value is meant for a headhunter. As both systems are still in development (development roadmap can be found no https://about.cryptotask.org/), percentage of task value going to headhunter could potentially be manually set.

I still don't get how the platform would take only 3% but I only get 70% of the value.

They're value-added features:

* You get 100% by default

* To get escrow services, you pay 3% of that

* If you want someone to find jobs for you, you pay 30% to them

I think this explanation makes more sense. The other explanation, although mathematically equivalent, sounds weird.

You'd get 97% of the job value if you use an escrow system. If you are a freelancer, who can't find a job and you rely on a headhunter, in that case you'd get 70% (which is to be discussed). If you don't use either of those, you'd get 100% of the job value.

They just explained it, it's three different models:

- keep 100% green you don't use their escrow system

- keep 97% if you do use their escrow system

- keep 70% if you need someone to find you jobs

Do you get most work through marketplaces like this or via people you wish have a connection with? I'm really interested in knowing if you could make a "good" living on these marketplaces if you want to sustain a middle class lifestyle as an adult with kids in Canada or the US (let's leave it the most expensive real estate regions). I briefly reviewed this space several years ago and didn't think it would pay enough to even remotely compete with more traditional employment, especially when you consider factors like "doing your taxes" and healthcare.

I am a full-time freelancer (cloud arc not dev). I started cold turkey last April when my firm lost tons of gigs. I started on market places and through that built relationships with other firms that didn't have a cloud architect and they have come back to me with additional work. I have also landed gigs through contacts. Once I got the ball moving it has been mostly non-stop. The taxes and insurance aren't as bad as you might think. The back end work of invoices, taxes, expenses, contracts, so on can all be managed in one app so it isn't a nightmare. It's nice to be able to spot concerning projects and turn them down as opposed to being forced into a project you know is going to be a nightmare. I bill @ 110/hr with no problem. It has also let me spend time giving away my services to some non-profits and startups. I don't think it's right for everyone but I enjoy it.

Thank you for sharing. I would love to know which app you use for invoices, contracts, etc.

Thank you for this, I have been out of the freelancing game for over 10 years and wasn't sure what it was like these days.

In the meantime I stopped freelancing but I had 5 longer running gigs in total (+ a few shorter term gigs).

All of these gigs I got through different channels.

Only 1 was through a platform, but it was one of those higher playing platforms where you had to go through an application process which included building a project without being paid (I was living in the US while I was working through this platform)

So in essence: I think it's possible but not on all platforms.

The platform you are talking about is probably Toptal https://www.toptal.com#connect-unmatched-coders-now ?

I work through them and am very satisfied. Though I do not live in the US, rates I can get through Toptal are much higher than local rates. And if you are from US you can set even higher rates. Also there are US only jobs. So I guess if you dont live in the expensive part of the US it is doable.

Toptal is not really aimed at the North American market. Last time I applied I could only book interviews at 3-5am.

I went to the site to look for cryptography related jobs. The shady postings without payment information, qualifications, or any other real information all made sense when I saw that the "crypto" was for cryptocurrencies.

One post wanted someone to create a coin in a month, but the rate was "negotiable". Hucksters (the posters).

I could create a coin for you tomorrow if you are interested. It will be based on an open source existing coin but you get to choose the blocksize and you get to name it.

Yep. That's my exact point.

Appreciate the feedback! When you put it that way, situation is ridiculous. That's the content quality issue. These jobs were manually approved and are legitimate, however due to lack of information they come of as shady. We'll add guidelines for clients to follow when creating a job listing and probably issue a requirement too. Accounts with no profile picture, no information on them, posting jobs titled with " NFT platform ", probably aren't employers freelancer is dreaming of.

I'm really glad to see your response and will bookmark your site for that reason. I want to visit again!

What appeared earlier to be the site's intent, now seem to be growing pains, after your explained the situation. I hope the site works well.

> 0% fee

This is untrue. On landing page there is already

> Fees are only up to 3%

If you scroll to the diagram ( https://thumb.tildacdn.com/tild3530-3537-4532-b434-373030613... ) it shows 30% high fee.

What is ironic given earlier

> Pain points: Huge platform fees (30%+)

I wonder how much goes to various hidden fees caused by blockchain inefficiency (gas? transaction fees)?

If you sign up on the platform, you can apply for a job, complete it and get 100% of the task value.

3% will be taken by the platform IF you decide to use an escrow system who's currently developing. You can always chose NOT TO use an escrow system.

Diagram showing 30% explains procedure for freelancers who can't find a job themselves, where 10% gets taken by the platform and gets used in CTASK burning and 20% goes to a middleman.

We aren't fixed on 20% and we may allow users to set the % of the task value they are willing to give.

> If you sign up on the platform, you can apply for a job, complete it and get 100% of the task value.

What about fees for transactions, fees for converting crypto into real money etc?

You'd get 100% of the task value credited to your wallet. Process and expenses of converting cryptocurrency to "real money" (cash?), vary from an individual and countries have different cryptocurrency laws. In Serbia, you'd end up paying 15% of the sold value to tax agency. There's been a rise in OTC trades allowing for 1:1 conversion.

Transaction fees wise, ETH fees are quite high at the moment. It'd cost you around $2 to transfer funds from the platform to your wallet. Higher the task value, smaller % of it, transaction fees make. You can always decide not to withdraw your funds right away, allowing you to collect a certain amount and save up on transaction fees.

Thanks for info! That is more reasonable than I assumed from 30% diagram.

You may want to try to clarify that on your landing page.

> "real money" (cash?)

Any form of currency that I can use for things that I need to buy.

I was expecting the whitepaper to explain how the technology works, but it seems to just be a business plan with very little detail on what the system actually does.

Thank you for the feedback! We'll be updating onsite content ASAP.

Here's a post containing two medium posts and additional explanation on backbone of the platform. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26480748

How does the automated jury work?

Here's a link to the reply I don't paste another wall of text: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26480945

Thanks, sounds interesting. If one could easily swap for another crypto it would be even more appealing.

Here is an old whitepaper with technical explanations https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26484040

I looked at the available writers on the platform. They all have broken english in their descriptions. I know it's hard to set up a marketplace but you might want to make sure your early providers have at least the bare minimum of skill someone would hire

This will change as we drive more freelancers to the platform. There's a review/rating system in place which will allow for quality of freelancers to show over time.

Like how Upwork "works"?

There's an issue, where high quality freelancer, doesn't want to apply for low paying/quality jobs to build credibility on the platform. Potential solutions are in development - one having to do with a blockchain identity hence the partnership with Hypermine https://cryptotask.medium.com/new-partnership-cryptotask-hyp...

The fundamental issue may be that most high quality developers don't need or use platforms like this.

We plan on forming partnerships with companies posting jobs under cryptocurrencyjobs.co and similar boards. High quality jobs founds and other growth methods who target both companies and freelancers, alongside easy and secure way to get paid in crypto will draw attention to CryptoTask and I believe, freelancers, who are highly skilled in what they do, will want to be found on CryptoTask's platform.

It could be worth finding good performers from other sites and subsidizing them on the new platform to provide the initial pool.

Hey,

great job on the landing page, it looks good!

Two questions:

- How are you coping with expensive gas on main net right now?

- Do you have a document describing how your token works on a technical level. Like a spec or so.

Thanks and good luck!

There are a couple of medium posts describing technical background of the platform and token itself such as: https://cryptotask.medium.com/cryptotask-combines-defr-and-d... https://cryptotask.medium.com/technical-background-of-crypto...

We are running on AEternity blockchain (https://aeternity.com/), making gas fees sufficiently low. There have been 19.5k transactions https://www.aeknow.org/contract/detail/ct_X3szYGp5irejPsowXp... and we are alive :)

Ooof, didn't know you were running on AEternity. That in itself would be a no for me. I would definitely love to participate if there was a decision to move to ETH when Optimism is released.

Why? The blockchain technologically, the UI difficulty of another chain, or the currency?

Because of all innovation is happening on Ethereum, so yes I don't want to deal with the UX difficulty of using another chain. Also I wouldn't want to invest (both time and $) into a project on a 2nd rate platform. Not to mention it doesn't reflect well on the project to not consider the network effect nor the planned L2 solutions that are here to address scalability. I highly recommend looking into Optimism. I'm not sure what the difference of AE and ETH EVM is (forked?), but I know that if you have a project in Solidity then you can launch on Optimism with little to no changes (just use their compiler).

who cares? they are just dropping junk storage onto random blockchain enthusiast's computers for basically free instead of AWS and are clearly paying their talent with a token that trades on the Ethereum network via Uniswap. Would you even notice?

You aren't a developer for them so you don't have to worry about Erlang, their token doesn't need an Aeternity wallet if it trades on Ethereum, and even if you do earn their token on the Aeternity blockchain they could just offer a bridge on their own website.

Let me know if I missed something, how is this your problem?

Because on Ethereum, they could connect/be integrated with other projects. As most dapps are on Ethereum and the network effect is probably the most important factor in crypto, this will continue to be the case.

Therefore it's highly unlikely that CryptoTask will ever have integrations with existing or potential new Dapps.

This might not be relevant right now, but it certainly will be in the future.

We are talking about a freelancer marketplace dumping state data on random nodes and miners computers for the lulz (and a level of immutability that nobody asked for). What could possibly be the integration here?

Their erc20 token on Ethereum can integrate with whatever you want

I think people are conflating things

On AEternity! Wow, I've participated in their ICO back then.

Thanks for the details, I'll take a look.

No Ethereum network- no go for me as well.

Their token trades on Uniswap so what difference does that make for you? Who cares where they dump their junk data?

Not the author, but it should be possible for them to move to a Layer 2 solution soon. Examples are Optimism, Fuel, or Loopring. They’re all still in beta though (I think)

Of course: “Buy CTASK”; take your pyramid scheme elsewhere. Money corrupts; bitcoin corrupts absolutely: https://www.cynicusrex.com/file/cryptocultscience.html.

We are at complete disagreement here. As for the possibly valid points, I'm showcasing the platform, where CTASK comes as an utility. Payments are done in stablecoins, DAI for example and CTASK is there for additional mechanisms, which client isn't required to use. Here's a technical old whitepaper which covers mechanisms CTASK is used for: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26484040

This is pretty neat but can you help me understand the core difference between this and Braintrust? How are you making this easy/trustworthy for the demand side of the platform to use? My learnings from a few years in the space (for context, I was early at Gigster, then went to Germany to help build a freelance dev platform for the EU market and now am at Tribe.AI where we specialize in AI focused freelance work with a managed marketplace) is that at the high end especially clients and freelancers are willing to have huge premiums for middlemen that alleviate headaches, take risk off their own plates, and can better manage client relationships.

There is a reputation system, so it is possible to see freelancer's history of past jobs and ratings. Also escrow can be used, so you wouldnt need to pay if job wasnt done according to specs. Dispute resolution being smart contract based is more transparent, and it is also great for ppl who prefer using crypto payments

> 0% fee

> Uniswap pair

With current gas prices, this unfortunately seems like a contradiction.

Blockchain fees are always there. However, there are solutions - such as NEAR (near.org) who reduce them. They claim to have "10K x lower cost per transaction than Ethereum" Regular client wouldn't feel those.

Gas prices are a given so generally aren't listed as a fee since it's intrinsic to the network.

Can you imagine if your bank charged you to write a check?

I don't understand how people are okay with gas prices being a given.

Because gas is like the cost of the paper. I wouldn't want my bank selling a fancier cheque just to charge more, but I do expect to cover the costs of the necessary anti-fraud features, etc. Similar to the cost of the code to verify the transaction.

But yes, it should be lower where possible. Both by code optimization and blockchain/architecture choices.

When my bank says they're sending me a new checkbook for free, I definitely do not expect to pay the price of the paper or anti-fraud features. Do you?

Yes, I don't have free checking anymore so the last book of 50 I got years ago, for weird one-off situations, cost me $5.

"When my bank says ... for free..." is what I wrote

Then to be just as pedantic back, those checks aren't free and you're paying more for them than I am.

But I was talking to georgyo, if you try to insert yourself, stay on topic. It's only polite.

You're new to this internet forum thing...

> Can you imagine if your bank charged you to write a check?

My bank charges me to use an ATM, and to send international transfers, so it doesn't take a lot of imagination.

Network fees for blockchain are the equivalence of taxes. People aren't okay with taxes, but they're the price you need to pay to participate in the financial system.

This reminds me, I got contacted by a freelancing platform the other day that had a "token" too, it was called Braintrust.

Their token didn't even trade because they were waiting to "go public" and I said "like, on the Nasdaq" and they said no, with a token sale of the token that doesn't exist yet. But their dashboard does give you a token which you cannot use and cannot withdraw, no different than points in CandyCrush. The people there genuinely believe in the token perk and blockchain aspect though, but don't seem to realize that it doesn't pass basic checkmarks of legitimacy which can be fixed by simply issuing it and throwing a liquidity pool o Uniswap like you guys did.

They're also doubling as a placement agency and "sell yourself" platform.

Leads me to believe they have no idea what they're doing, validated by reviews about them on other platforms.

This looks really cool. Congrats on the launch!

I've always wondered how blockchain companies consider branding around their tech vs their outcomes. Like there are a ton of great outcomes here for using blockchain tech, but I find "crpyto" products intimidating to use, even as a techy.

I see where you are coming from. Eventually, CryptoTask will be seen as a regular freelance platform with low fees and accent on security for onsite deals. Technology, which does scare away potential clients, provides that. In case of a dispute, you won't spend days / weeks resolving the issue, it'll be automated and the outcome will be decided by real users.

> it'll be automated and the outcome will be decided by real users

I don't understand how both these things can hold. Unless the "real users" are automated?

Automated in the sense that there is no company resolving disputes, but are resolved in a decentralized manner by other users who are selected automatically

Oh, I see: trial by jury. (Or is it more like the court of public opinion?)

I wonder how well that'll work out. Will those automatically-selected "other users" really be able to grasp the legal and contractual issues adequately to resolve a detailed technical dispute?

devil is in the details. you would need highly skilled and experienced arbitrators here for each vertical.

I see that you have less than one job posted per day. Am I missing something?

What price range are you aiming at? For instance, fiverr is for tiny gigs, upwork - for low to mid paying jobs. What is your range?

Jobs have no value limit as we don't depend on a third party payment providers and limitations which come with them. Our focus is on becoming the leading freelance platform for blockchain jobs. As for on platform activity you may follow it at https://www.aeknow.org/contract/detail/ct_X3szYGp5irejPsowXp... as current representation of listed jobs isn't accurate, because filled job positions get removed from the list. This will be addressed in the following updates. There's a Croatian section of the platform, as we acquired freelance.hr , with regional jobs.

Can you run a quick query in your database and answer my questions?

There are plenty of blockchain jobs out there on other platforms. Why should I invest time in your platform? I'm looking for short contracts that are paying over $200 per hour. Is this something your platform can offer?

you can apply to https://app.cryptotask.org/en/tasks/872 or https://app.cryptotask.org/en/tasks/869 ..yea the price in this case is set to negotiable, but on most platforms even if you have set price it is usually negotiated before work starts, so nothing different here. Also as mentioned, there is significant traction on Croatian section, international section will have more and more jobs as we are focusing on growth now, so great time to build reputation as a freelancer

I’m interested in hearing about this too.

I feel this one is growing fast, most of the good jobs get filled in 10 minutes, I've been following the activity for the past few hours...

Do you plan to move to Optimism when that launches this month? From what I understand, little to no changes are needed on your the codebase. You should be able to just use their compiler and deploy.

Why do you need a token?

Better control over tokenomics and incentive structure

Huh? What does that even mean?

token is like company shares. revenue streams (such as escrow) are connected to token burning, effectively paying out dividends to token holders

How do you handle fraud, feedback and dispute resolution?

At the moment - tasks are manually approved. This is bound to change as escrow system gets developed. You can find development roadmap found about.cryptotask.org Feedback is added with after a task is successfully completed, which over time would create high quality freelancers from ones who don't perform so well.

As for the dispute system - I'll copy previously provided answer taken from Forbes article: "With a review system like that of CryptoTask, reviewers are token holders that stake an amount equal to the task value that they are putting themselves forward for as a potential reviewer. It means that being a stakeholder, you already have a chance of being selected. That chance is directly proportional to that individual's stake, so this prevents sybil attacks.

If they do, however, get randomly selected to be a reviewer and the task goes into dispute, they are required to cast a vote on whether or not they think the task was actually completed. If a reviewer votes against the consensus or does not vote at all, they do not lose any certain percentage of their staked amount.

Some of the benefits of such a system include:

    Selection happens in secret to prevent reviewers from influencing the consensus through collusion.
    A two-stage voting process (secret commit and then reveal) means reviewers can’t wait to see how other reviewers voted and then just go with the consensus.
    Reviewers would generally be professionals with a relatively large token stake and therefore in a good position to escalate and vote on a dispute."

This would sum up dispute system with incentive for reviewers being 10% of the task value split among them.

Very cool. Although there's still challenge on the human side on /seeding/ the right high quality initial network, I can see something like this really being able to scale. The question of course is how well this conceptually scales with task complexity -- obviously, something like an Amazon MTurk task is one thing and probably the appropriate existing system for a system like this to supplant.

With that said, how does this scale to handling more complex tasks that require more back and forth? There's the "fuzzy" area of problem solving as tasks get larger and less clearly defined. Is that out of scope for now to keep focus is on the low hanging fruit?

I would love to see something like this completely deprecate MTurk and low wage Upwork.

Am I from a different planet or is this an absolute load of incomprehensible nonsense detached from reality that solves no "real" problem in any effective way or acknowledges the complexities of reality?

I could be from a different planet, and maybe I'm the crazy one, but I've been keeping up with technology for 25 years and this just rings alarm bells.

You may have a point. What concerns do you have?

What exactly is the role of the blockchain here?

It sounds cool. They're probably going to have ML and AI for their reputation system too.

Here's quite technical but old whitepaper for anyone who's showing interest in CTASK and dispute mechanism https://drive.google.com/file/d/13zuCikwuh3Ns8fCEUYlU1YE_PnL...

Hi. This looks interesting. Have you considered integrating with Kleros for dispute resolution? And if not, why not?

Kleros has some complexities that we dont need, while we need some things that Kleros doesnt have, ie potential reviewers are not necessarily just token holders, but other users with reputation above certain level etc.

How does that work from a tax point of view? I guess you have to pay income tax when you receive the tokens for the job, then capital gain tax when you convert to USD/EUR?

For this sort of contractual work they'll probably bill and pay in an algorithmic stablecoin which is intended to track the dollar.

Regardless of the taxable nature of such a thing (which may or may not be a security because it's designed not to change value based on the actions of others) it should simplify the issue by at least not changing wildly from day to day.

A stablecoin isn’t different from other crypto assets from a tax point of view (at least in the US and Germany).

I don't think any of it has really been tested, but because two of the Howey test's four provisions are "with an expectation of profit" and "on the work of others" and don't seem to fit something intended to not create a profit it seems like there will be a significant difference in eventual treatment.

Whether the crypto you receive in compensation is considered a security or not will not matter from an income tax perspective in the US. If you were paid in stock, you would owe taxes on the compensation at the price of the stock at the time you received it. You might also be subject to capital gains tax if you sell the asset (stock or security-crypto) if you sell it with a cost basis calculated at the time you received it.

IOW, if you got paid say 10 ETH, priced at $1800/ETH, you would owe income tax for $18,000 that year. It does not matter if you sell the ETH or not. It does not matter if ETH is considered a security or not. You pay taxes on the value of compensation whether the compensation is in USD, stock, ETH or chickens. If you subsequently sold the ETH for $2000/ETH, you would then owe capital gains taxes on 10 * (2000 - 1800) = $2000 of capital gains. Possibly short term, possibly long term depending on when you sell it.

The IRS has a nice FAQ here https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/freq...

Your analysis should be correct based on my understanding of the tax treatments

It should be a bit simpler because it is intended not to change in value. If you sell it for what you get it for you may not need to file a pub544. Not sure.

Stablecoins are never perfectly pegged, so you still have some gain/loss

It's generally easy not to, because they bounce around the peg. You can set your sale at 1.00 and wait, it won't take long.

It might not matter though. If you have to file anyways then shoot for profit.

This looks super nice!!

How's the process for setting a task to "completed"? Can that be exploited? How does the Automated jury process work?

Here's a quote from a Forbes article: "With a review system like that of CryptoTask, reviewers are token holders that stake an amount equal to the task value that they are putting themselves forward for as a potential reviewer. It means that being a stakeholder, you already have a chance of being selected. That chance is directly proportional to that individual's stake, so this prevents sybil attacks.

Some of the benefits of such a system include:

    Selection happens in secret to prevent reviewers from influencing the consensus through collusion.
    A two-stage voting process (secret commit and then reveal) means reviewers can’t wait to see how other reviewers voted and then just go with the consensus.
    Reviewers would generally be professionals with a relatively large token stake and therefore in a good position to escalate and vote on a dispute."

This would sum up dispute system with incentive for reviewers being 10% of the task value split among them.

As for the actual Forbes article I keep mentioning https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidpetersson/2018/10/27/the-p...

Could you elaborate on this?

> If a reviewer votes against the consensus or does not vote at all, they do not lose any certain percentage of their staked amount.

Does that mean they don't lose anything? Or that they lose some amount, but that amount is not a simple fraction of staked amount?

They don't lose anything, but they don't gain anything either.

Nice to see different use cases, what's the advantage of paying with your token vs using a stablecoin for payment?

Successfully completed tasks are paid out in stablecoins, DAI being a primary example, as backbone of the CryptoTask is AEternity blockchain with DAI having highest liquidity on AE. CTask has a different utility and you may read about it at https://cryptotask.medium.com/ctask-token-utility-d4aac4ca69...

Good question. Nice to see that they prioritize stablecoins, it's what makes the most sense for general users. Anything that insists you use their utility token is showing you a red flag.

this is plain awesome, I've been looking for such platform with decent bc related jobs, I see there are quite a few, are there any restrictions to becoming a freelancer on the platform? geographical or otherwise?

Anyone who wants to work, can work. That's the idea behind platform. There are no restrictions whatsoever.

I can provide personal example, where I couldn't find a work because I had to rely on third payment providers, who Serbian citizens, at the time I was 16 couldn't use. That was around 7 years ago.

i signed up now I'm expecting moneys

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