Blockchain Freelancing Platform for Secure Payments And Skill-Based Project Matching Using NIP

Abstract

This research presents a blockchain-enabled freelancing platform that integrates smart contract-based escrow, decentralized identity, and intelligent freelancer matching to promote trust, transparency, and automation in digital labor markets. The system uses an Ethereum-compatible smart contract called Freelance Escrow, which manages the funding of projects securely, restricts interactions between employers and freelancers to a few specific roles, and automates the release of payments based on the verifiable completion of work. A Python-based blockchain interface developed using Web3.py is used to deploy contracts, sign transactions, and retrieve the current states, while a Streamlit front end provides authentication for user, project, and wallet operations. The platform includes a TF-IDF similarity model that matches freelancers to projects based on relevant skills and semantic similarity, as well as a structured database using SQLite, in which all users, profiles, and project metadata are stored. Comprehensive analysis reveals that the application has strengths in automation, transparency, and enforcement of workflow, while addressing privacy concerns around private key handling, file path inconsistencies, and Web3 library compatibility. The research demonstrates a working end-to-end architecture for decentralized freelance contracting and establishes a foundation for building further secure, scalable, and trust-preserving digital marketplaces.