A Freelance Job Market Is Moving Its 700,000-User Web 2.0 Business to EOS

Over 700,000 user accounts from a freelancing website are moving onto the EOS blockchain.

Moonlighting, a marketplace for freelance professionals launched in 2014, has taken on a $5 million investment round led by the FinLab EOS VC fund, a joint venture of FinLab AG and Block.

The investment will be used to grow Moonlighting's user base and to integrate its existing infrastructure with EOS. "We have been exploring blockchain protocols since the end of 2017 and [have] chosen EOSIO due to its ability to scale transaction processing, maintain low transaction costs and enable ease of user account management," Moonlighting CEO Jeff Tennery told CoinDesk.

One raised an estimated $4 billion in a yearlong initial coin offering that ended in 2018, using those funds to develop the EOSIO software on which the EOS blockchain is run.

"We believe that Moonlighting contains the three key traits you look for in a decentralized application: real customers, real traction and a bona fide use case for blockchain technology," Paul Grotowski, COO of EOS VC, said in a press release.

Integrating with Web 3.0 technology is a strategic shift for Moonlighting.

Critically the company is not copying all of its data to the blockchain in plain text.

"The hashes on the blockchain provides audit-ability and validity to our freelancer profiles maintained off-chain," he said.

"This funding facilitates implementing our blockchain plans to be the Oracle of Profiles in the freelance economy."

Moonlighting co-founders photo courtesy of the company.