Show HN: Kacet – a freelancer marketplace with crypto-native payments

[wrux]

Hi HN,

I’m a co-founder building kacet, a new freelancing platform that connects freelancers and employers, with crypto as the core payment rail.

The problem I’m trying to solve is pretty familiar: existing platforms take high fees, are slow to pay out, and don’t work well for international teams. kacet is an experiment in building a simpler, more neutral marketplace where payments are borderless by default.

Some highlights:

• Crypto-native payments – fast, borderless payouts without banks, delays, or surprise freezes • Peer-to-peer contracts – clients and freelancers work directly, the platform doesn’t own the relationship Built for teams – multi-user organisations for agencies and startups out of the box • Low, transparent fees – simple pricing with no boosts, ads, or hidden take rates • No dark patterns – a calm UI focused on agreeing work and getting paid, not maximising engagement

Payments are handled by Solana smart contracts, with a React frontend (TanStack Start). We’re keeping the feature set small to validate the core workflow: post work → agree terms → get paid.

This is still early and very much a work in progress. I’d really appreciate feedback from people who have hired freelancers, worked as one, or built marketplaces before.

Site: https://kacet.com

Happy to answer any questions or go into more detail on the payment model, trust mechanics, or why I think this approach might (or might not) work.

[mhitza]

I think your idea has potential, in some alternate universe, or crypto configuration (such as Monero).

From my point of view the problem is that most cryptocurrencies are used as speculation instruments, and there's a significant hoop to pay someone in crypto.

Building on top of Monero would alleviate some of those issues, while targeting an even smaller niche of people.

From a business perspective the landing page does not do any work in reassuring me. Focusing on fees rather than vetted freelancers, testimonials, and without any form of results "assurance", escrow system or dispute resolution why would any company take on the risk of hiring a freelancer this way while also gambling with all the issues crypto brings?

[wrux]

Solana is great because fees are so low, the wallet apps are great, there's loads of stable coins and there's a big pool of users.

I don't think using Monero would be a good platform because it does not have smart any contract functionality. The only thing Monero has going for it is hiding transactions, and we don't need that for kacet.

I agree the marketing website isn't great. We are two developers and don't have much marketing experience. Now we have something online we are looking into improving our online presence.

[littlecranky67]

> and there's a significant hoop to pay someone in crypto

Not sure why that would be. Being paid in Bitcoin is very easy. Download a non-custodial Wallet such as Phoenix Wallet or Wallet of Satoshi (new version is non-custodial) and you can receive on-chain bitcoin, or even better, lightning payments right away. You create an invoice as a link or QRcode and send it to your employer, and done.

The payer (employer) most likely will need to convert fiat/cash to bitcoin first, but since the kacet project aims to attract companies in that space, there shouldn't be an issue.

[wrux]

That's the plan.

The project idea came from me paying freelance designers for work using Solana and wishing there was something to keep me safe. At the time it seemed like all of the freelance work platforms were using Ethereum which had extortionate fees, so I decided to look into bringing such a platform to Solana.

[littlecranky67]

I like the idea of a crypto-focused platform. I don't see payment in particular a neccessity of the platform though, no need for smart contracts for that case. You should bring together employers and freelancers, and they can sort out payment themselves. Crypto is a heterogenous bubble anyway (just as I, for example, am a Bitcoin-only guy and will reject every other crypto).

[skeptic_ai]

Why not monero? Even lower fees and you don’t need to advertise to the whole world how much money you have.

[wrux]

There's no smart contracts on Monero so it doesn't really solve problem of secure and verifiable work contracts between 2 people.

There is talks of Monero-like privacy on Solana so that will come in useful later

[scirob]

You should try to connect with someone from one of the previous attempts at a decentralized Upwork and understand why it didn’t work out for them. One example is this: https://docs.talentlayer.org/

[wrux]

That's a brilliant idea and I'll get in touch with the founder

[jcattle]

In German you'd probably pronounce your company KZ, short for Concentration Camp (Konzentrationslager).

Not ideal, but I guess internationally it's less of an issue :)

[rhoads]

And in Brazilian Portuguese it is read the same way as a slang for penis

[thompson2908]

In Polish "kacet" literally means what @jcattle mentioned - a phonetic loanword from German.

[postepowanieadm]

Unfortunately, that's the first thing that comes to my mind when I see the name.

[wrux]

Ouch, we chose the name because we thought it had no meaning. I

[brazukadev]

In Brazil it means "dick".

[wrux]

It's a good job it's pronounced differently to cacete. The guy that designed the logo is from Brazil and he did mention that.

[dclarke26]

oops haha

[mpeg]

Good idea, but you're several years too late to the web3 market.

I know you're probably hoping for the non-crypto businesses to use it, but there's little incentive. The hiring company holds the cards when it comes to payments most of the time anyway – when you hire a remote worker, they often deliver 100% of the work before getting paid

Even in higher end contracts it's rare to find a company that is willing to pay a deposit.

[wrux]

We are looking for web3 natives who are using blockchain in their daily work and I think nowadays there are more than ever before. It's going to prove difficult without a strong marketing campaign though

[faeyanpiraat]

I had all kinds of problems with freelancing platforms, but payments were not one of them.

It’s always nice trying to build stuff but I really hope this is just a hobby project for you..

[wrux]

We are hoping that the more technical platform attracts a different talent pool to Upwork or Fiverr

[bambax]

Thanks but as a contractor/freelancer I prefer to be paid with real money.

[keyle]

What is a web3 native?

[wrux]

People that use crypto in their regular day-to-day work

[PretzelPirate]

> Payments are handled by Solana smart contracts, with a React frontend (TanStack Start).

This is disappointing.

Solana has a highly centralized validator set that will keep shrinking over time as the cost to run one out paces the rise in the SOL price.

This leads to it being very centralized.

Solana is also missing core cryptographic primitives like state receipts, meaning I can be easily tricked by a dishonest validator about whether my transaction happened.

Without a mempool, sending transactions is a nightmare during high network usage and my transaction can dissappear forever, or be executed multiple times.

Solana isn't even significantly cheaper than the alternatives anymore.

[wrux]

Yeah that's true and the plan is to expand to multiple chains once the platform has users and we are happy with the stability of the system.

Our current system will allow us to expand to Ethereum easily which will open up a much larger network. We just wanted to keep things simple for our initial product and you have to admit that Solana is a good chain to build on.