For most of the history of cryptocurrencies, the primary use case was simply buying and trading tokens.
Now, some investors and builders believe the industry may be moving to a completely different model: earning rather than buying cryptocurrencies.
One version of that idea is what venture firm Multicoin Capital calls the Internet Labor Market (ILM). This is a network where users receive tokens for providing work, resources, or expertise.
“In the future, the reason people acquire cryptocurrencies for the first time will not be because they bought it,” Sengupta said in an interview with CoinDesk. “Maybe it’s because they earned it.”
This concept is starting to gain traction, especially in ecosystems like Solana, where more projects are experimenting with networks that reward users for performing verifiable tasks.
This shift from speculation to profit is at the heart of the Internet labor market, where users contribute work, resources, and judgment to a decentralized network and receive tokens in return. Sengupta believes that if this model takes hold, cryptocurrencies could evolve into something akin to a global labor market.
For most of cryptocurrency’s existence, participation meant converting traditional money into digital assets like Bitcoin, Ether, and Solana before interacting with the ecosystem. ILM reverses that dynamic. Instead of purchasing tokens first, users complete tasks and receive crypto as payment.
“The idea is simple,” Sengupta says. “There are two ways people can get into cryptocurrencies: either buy or make money.”
For the past decade, most users have followed the first route. But Sengupta believes the next wave will come from the second wave.
“If you have a system where you can issue new assets and move them around at very low cost, you can coordinate your workforce around the world,” he said.
In reality, that labor can take many forms, including providing bandwidth, labeling data, reducing energy consumption, and performing physical tasks associated with distributed infrastructure.
“If someone starts a company to procure what the market needs, 50,000 people around the world can get paid to produce that labor,” Sengupta said.
The concept builds on earlier crypto experiments, such as Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks (DePIN), a category of projects that primarily emerged from the Solana ecosystem, rewarding participants for contributing resources such as wireless coverage and mapping data.
But Sengupta believes the next step will go beyond hardware.
“This system allows people to be more active, contributing judgment, effort and time, rather than just plugging in hardware,” he said.
Many ILM systems focus on discrete tasks that can be instantly verified and paid for, rather than passive contributions. The network may reward users for labeling data, reporting local information, identifying bugs in code, or completing real-world challenges.
Advantages of blockchain
Blockchain infrastructure enables these systems because work can be automatically verified and settled.
In traditional employment systems, payments often require invoices, approvals, and delays. ILM replaces that process with deterministic verification. This means we verify work is completed and pay contributors instantly through crypto rails.
Much of that research may eventually intersect with artificial intelligence.
One example Sengupta cites is Grass, a network that allows users to share unused internet bandwidth through software installed on their devices. Bandwidth can be used for >
If this vision becomes a reality, the next users of cryptocurrencies may emerge through work rather than speculation.
Read more: Multicoin Capital co-founder Kyle Samani steps down after nearly a decade to pursue other areas of technology
