A new compensation report from the Protocol Guild draws a clear picture of the trade-offs facing Ethereum Core Developers. Many are low wages in Fiat terms and do not receive reverse exposure to tokens, but continue to maintain Ethereum's most important infrastructure.
In this cohort, the Protocol Guild (PG) is the sole source of “fair” compensation, filling in structural voids that traditional employers cannot or will not bridge.
The numbers are impressive. The median Ethereum Core developer gets $140,000 in Fiat coverage from their employers, and the median external offers is $300,000, creating a 114% gap. The PG distribution streamed via the transparent on-chain best schedule adds an additional $67,121 to the median, increasing the total reward to $207,121. It's not yet in the market, but it helps close the gap, representing almost a third of the average developer's total revenue.
The role of PGs is most prominent in risk compensation. Only 37% of contributors surveyed receive stock or token grants from their employers. PG bridges that gap with a mechanism that behaves like early stage fairness rather than pay: it is long-term, aligned with ecosystems and tied to the long-term health of Ethereum itself.
Over the past year, 38% of the members surveyed have received employment offers, typically from L2 or other L1. Reports from a small but obvious subsample show that the median grant is 6.5% of token/equity.
Compensation disparities occur not only among ecosystems, but also among Ethereum itself.
For example, this report shows that the research role has a median cache package of $215,000, while client development and coordination would be $130,000. Similarly, developers with 7-8 years of experience earn a median of $212,000, surpassing the median of $150,000 for people over nine years, suggesting some of the lagging pay raises or under roles of Ethereum's most skilled contributors.
sauce: Protocol Guild
The meaning is that there is a real retention risk, with 59% of respondents rated the protocol guild as “very” or “very” important to their decision to stay in Ethereum Core development. Since the pilot in May 2022, PG has distributed over $32 million to contributors, funded by an ecosystem project that pledges 1% of its token supply. However, the donor base is concentrated. When models scale, they account for almost the entire current best pipeline, which emphasizes the need for a broader buy-in.
