I've never really seen Bitcoin freelancing as separate from freelancing. I was a freelancer/self-employed person for a period of time until 2006, before having made the decision to relocate to a new place in 2015/16... forcing me to return to freelancing and remote work.
I still took a time to rebuild networks and reputation, before the gigs started flowing back in. And I had to work for a long time to slowly convince people (employers) to pay in bitcoin. Until around 2018 even, some were still paying in paypal or even bank wire but as of today, all my main clients are 100% crypto (only 1 pays in alt) and the few who still insist on paypal or others I no longer focus on as much.
So in practical aspects, I'm about virtually 100% freelancing for bitcoin.
Freelancing works better on upwork and other non-crypto specific platforms (ie. work your ass off by reaching out to people). Then it's your job to convince them to pay in btc. I offer a discount on my rates for bitcoin payments, and that's the clincher. They save 3%-5% on costs, I make it up by also gaining bitcoin feeless and I sell it on a good rate p2p.
I couldn't have said it any better , relying on a freelancer sites with the current bad trends bitcoin market won't give you any solutions... people tend to play safe lately, rather than have to risking themselves buy some bitcoin to pay services while the value could dropped drastically, is it makes any sense? Of course it is.
I was seoclercks customer back in 2014 / 2015 .. I choose them because they accept bitcoin, ethereum and litecoin ... guess they are no longer accept crypto payment since 2017/2018 for undisclosed reason. Now I feel the same like OP who thinks that the crypto freelancers it seems slowly dead left out, that's from a customer view.
This is clearly a single step backward for the progress of Bitcoin or cryptocurrency adoption. Freelancing is a niche where Bitcoin could have thrived since it is mostly done through the internet, and payments asked and made will have to cross borders. Crypto should really be gaining in this billion-dollar niche. But it seems the significant changes of cryptocurrencies' prices which happens all the time is spoiling every potential.