Can Blockchain Help Freelancers?

Some freelancers worry that careers in freelancing offer less protection than traditional jobs at established companies. If the work dries up, freelancers can have a difficult time reestablishing income. Moreover, financial burdens like expensive independent insurance can sidetrack an independent worker’s growth potential.

However, many of the most pressing issues for freelancers aren’t limitations related to income projections or cost burdens. Freelancers are uniquely adept at deriving a profit from their skills and resources.

Instead, the most restrictive obstacles are mainly technical. Obstacles such as achieving contractual trust in a digital environment, acquiring technological resources, and the lack of compelling markets are hindering freelancers’ success.

These technical problems are mainly relating to difficulties in transactions, which means that blockchain is uniquely positioned to provide tangible solutions for freelancers. It’s already demonstrated its prowess in managing the millions of cryptocurrency transactions that take place every day, and it can create trust and certainty in an otherwise uncertain environment.

Many freelancers find clients online, which means that they don’t have any direct, personal relationship with one another. Without that degree of trust, freelancers fret about payment viability and job posters worry about the quality of the final product. Blockchain’s smart contracts are a natural way to remedy that shortcoming.

With a smart contract, freelancers can set predetermined benchmarks for a project, and those checkpoints can be assigned a payment. In this way, freelancers don’t have worry about being compensated for work performed, and job posters have a level of quality control over the final product. Smart contracts are a working agreement between the two parties that eliminates the prerequisite of trust and allows everyone to operate with confidence.

(an excerpt from text on https://hackernoon.com/blockchain-is-helping-to-restructure-the-freelance-economy-cdae29f91ba0)

Picture by courtesy of FinMag https://finmag.ir/