Everyone's saying Web3 is dead. The salary data tells a different story.

Average Web3 compensation peaked at $553,000 in early 2025. It's $138,000 now. That's a 75% drop in 18 months. 232 applicants compete for each open role.

North America leads at $143K. Lead Devs average $151K. All comp sits 42% below historical norms.

This is not a sector dying. This is a sector filtering. The developers who built through the 2018-2019 bear market produced most of the infrastructure $BTC runs on today. That cycle took 12-18 months to bottom.

The question isn't whether Web3 is dead. It's whether you can tell the difference between a dying market and a compression phase.

At what salary floor does Web3 talent stop competing and permanently leave?