LaborX a freelance platform that pays in crypto

While I combed through the internet for freelancing platforms that are niched and targeted at cryptocurrency users it was really hard to find good ones with an active community. Most of the platforms we found had already shut down or the project seemed more or less dead. Eventually though, we stumbled upon the platform LaborX.

What is LaborX?

LaborX describes itself as an on-demand work platform built by Australian blockchain company Chrono.tech. This platform is exactly what we had been searching for. It specifically targets cryptocurrency users. If you’ve ever used a freelancing platform like Fiverr or Upwork before, you will feel right at home because this one reminds me of them. All payments on the platform are settled in cryptocurrencies and they also support multiple blockchains now that they’ve integrated Binance smart chain. Thanks to this integration it’s also very fast and cheap to deposit & withdraw funds from the platform. The platform is by far the most active freelancing crypto platform to date. We’ve already had multiple successful interactions with freelancers over there.

How are freelancers and customers connected?

LaborX connects freelancers and customers through smart contracts on Ethereum or the Binance smart chain. These contracts function as an escrow service and also automate payouts in cryptocurrency once a job has been marked as completed.

Reputation system

Just like most, if not all freelance platforms, LaborX has a reputation system. This system helps customers and freelancers alike. By interacting with people that have a good reputation and a lot of history on the platform you will have a much greater chance of working with someone that is professional and trustworthy. The reputation system algorithm will take into account multiple factors when calculating the reputation of a user. For example, previous experience, reviews, education and, previous contracts that have been completed successfully.

Disputes

Per default, LaborX claims to have a smart internal dispute resolution system that will try to resolve any disputes that arise between customers and freelancers. This dispute resolution system is designed to mediate between both the conflicting parties by using the on chain contract data.

What are the fees?

Whenever a new job has been initiated & confirmed by both parties the customer will send funds to a smart contract on either the Ethereum blockchain or the Binance smart chain to lock up funds. The platform fees will be the same no matter what blockchain you decide to use, however keep in mind that if you decide to pay or accept payments on Ethereum the transaction fees will be sky high. This is not the fault of LaborX though, all transactions on Ethereum are very costly right now as the network is very congested due to the great demand.

The platform fees are currently 1% for customers and 5% for freelancers. So if you as a freelancer receive a payment worth $100 for a job you’ve just completed then the service fee paid by the customer would be $1 and by you (the freelancer) $5. These fees are only affecting you if you have a free member account. You can become a premium member and remove the platform fees altogether, isn’t that great? Keep on reading as we will explain what is required from you to become a premium member later in this post.

What cryptocurrencies are supported?

As of writing this post the currencies supported by LaborX are:

On Ethereum

USDT, ETH, DAI, TIME, USDC, UPUSD, AUDT

On Binance smart chain

BUSD, BNB, USDT, DAI, BTC

TIME token

Chrono.tech, the creators of LaborX has an ERC20 token called TIME. This token is deployed on the Ethereum blockchain and its address on the blockchain is 0x485d17a6f1b8780392d53d64751824253011a260. The token has already been in existence for a couple of years and the total supply of the token seems to be 710,112 with a price of $21.77 (at publish time) effectively giving it a market cap of roughly $15.5M.

Since a couple of weeks back (May 2021) you can now lock & stake TIME tokens in a smart contract that the chrono.tech team likes to call TimeWarp. By staking your TIME in the TimeWarp contract you will earn TIME tokens from the buy backs that the team makes with the revenue that they generate from all of their products and services. The team hopes that this together with other things will give the TIME token more value as time progresses. Even though this post is about LaborX, readers should know that chrono.tech also provide other products & services like their plasma based exchange TimeX which also collects revenue in the form of trading fees.

Besides the aforementioned there are also other things that provide value to the TIME token. This discussion will bring us back to the LaborX premium member accounts that we briefly mentioned earlier in the post.

Premium member

Recall that LaborX collects revenue from the service fees that customers & freelancers pay for using the platform services. These fees can be waived by becoming a premium member. To become a premium member of LaborX you will need to hold 150 TIME tokens in total to your wallets. Besides waived fees, premium members also receive other benefits like reduced costs for dispute handling, higher ranking in searches on the platform etc…

Conclusion

LaborX is a really nice freelance platform and we can strongly recommend it. However nothing is perfect in life and this also holds true for this project. Even though this by far is the best freelance platform that we have in the crypto industry it is still very empty compared to more common traditional freelancing platforms like Fiverr and Upwork. But, we expect this platform to increase its user base rapidly and we will keep on using it because we think it’s fantastic. If you want to try the project out you can find it over at laborx.com