Data suggests that employees at Binance, Coinbase, and Gemini express lower levels of job satisfaction

Crypto Exchanges and Employee Happiness: Analyzing Glassdoor Data

Crypto exchanges, including Gemini, Binance, and Coinbase, have been highlighted as workplaces with some of the least happy employees in the industry, according to data derived from Glassdoor. However, it is important to consider potential biases in the results.

A quadrant chart, compiled by tech recruitment firm TrueUp and based on data from job review platform Glassdoor, provides insights into employee happiness and growth among various crypto firms. The chart includes 27 of the most valuable cryptocurrency companies.

Among the companies featured on the chart, defunct crypto lender Celsius, crypto exchange Gemini, and crypto trading firm Amber Group have been identified as having the least happy employees, based on 80, 139, and 42 reviews respectively.

Binance and Coinbase also appear on the lower end of the chart, with a combined total of 1,257 Glassdoor reviews.

Although Glassdoor does not provide a specific happiness metric, it assesses whether reviewers would recommend the company to a friend, their approval of the CEO they worked under, and their overall positive outlook for the company.

Binance attributes score to ‘hardcore’ values

In an interview with Cointelegraph, a spokesperson from Binance explained that the company seeks to hire candidates who can thrive in a high-performance environment and who are deeply committed to delivering for their users. The spokesperson acknowledged that not all Binance employees are suited to the demanding nature of the work, and negative reviews are accepted as a result. The company values negative feedback as it helps identify and address any problems, emphasizing their commitment to improving the employee experience.

Glassdoor concerns

Glassdoor reviews are user-submitted and self-reported, which has led to concerns regarding the legitimacy of the data. Recruiters have raised questions about the possibility of fake or manipulated reviews. However, Glassdoor states that all reviews go through a moderation process before being approved for publication on their website.

Neil Dundon, the founder of Crypto Recruit, suggested that while the Glassdoor data is speculative, it seems that employees working on infrastructure projects in the crypto industry may be more satisfied compared to those working at exchanges. He hypothesized that the latter group might feel less fulfilled due to the speculative nature of their work, while the former group finds more purpose in building blockchain infrastructure. Dundon also noted that the industry-wide layoffs could have influenced the overall job satisfaction levels.

Despite the challenges faced by crypto employees, Dundon believes that the worst may be behind them, offering a potential silver lining for the future.

The TrueUp chart identifies Ava Labs, the team behind the Avalanche blockchain, cryptocurrency exchange and wallet provider Blockchain.com, and Fireblocks, an institutional digital asset custodian, as having the “happiest” workers in the industry.

Furthermore, Glassdoor data reveals that Alex Mashinsky, the founder and former CEO of the now-bankrupt cryptocurrency lending platform Celsius, had one of the industry’s lowest CEO approval ratings, with only 27% of past and present Celsius employees “approving” of him. Brian Armstrong and Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, the CEOs of Coinbase and Binance respectively, have approval ratings of 69% and 65%, which is below average for technology-based CEOs.