2023 Crypto Compensation Report | Notion

2023 Crypto Compensation Report

MARCH 19, 2024

ZACKARY SKELLY AND CHRIS AHSING, DRAGONFLY

Crypto moves fast, and industry compensation data is scarce — especially comprehensive analyses. This can be a stumbling block for startups seeking to strategically navigate their growth. Our first annual compensation survey was developed in response to this gap.

We’ll be providing our portfolio with access to a more granular dataset, but we hope this report provides a clear picture of industry trends in a way that’s both accessible and useful to anyone setting, negotiating, or attempting to understand compensation, be they hiring teams, candidates, or industry observers.

We realize this data can be sliced and diced in many ways, and we may not have addressed all of your questions. Email us at recruiting@dragonfly.xyz if there’s something specific you’re curious about.

Notes and Demographics

This analysis is based on a survey conducted across 49 portfolio companies in 2023. Insights are based on available data and indicate trends rather than definitive sector-wide practices. They should be viewed as indicative rather than conclusive.

Further research with larger sample sizes would help confirm these trends, which we’ll remain mindful of with future, compounding versions of this report. We advise that findings be interpreted with consideration of listed respondent rates and the following:

Salary, Equity, and Token Compensation Bands

Below are salary, equity, and token compensation bands for the following roles, broken out by US-based and International-based companies: Software Engineer, Crypto Engineer, Product Manager, Product Designer, and Go-to-Market.

US-based companies offer higher compensation across nearly all roles and seniority levels when compared to international-based companies. On average and approximately, this translates to 13% higher salaries, and 30% higher equity and token packages.

Some interesting data points and outliers:

Observations on Robustness and Reliability

Founder Compensation

As one might expect, founders’ salaries increase as companies raise additional capital, while equity/token ownership decreases, likely due to dilution. Most founders report below-median salary leading up to Series B.

The absence of international data at Pre-seed, Series B, and Series C stages makes comparing US and international founders difficult. Interestingly, though, when comparing them at Seed and Series A, US founders generally command slightly higher salaries but significantly more ownership. This is especially true at Seed.

Cost-of-Living Adjustments and Methodologies

Most companies are not adjusting compensation based on cost of living (COL).

Of the companies that are adjusting, we see two common methodologies:

Those who don’t adjust for COL typically think of their compensation as being strictly tied to the value someone generates for the business, regardless of where they’re located.

Companies tend to hire less outside of the US at later fundraising stages. It’s worth noting, however, that the majority of respondents in this specific analysis are based in the US.

Payment Methods (Fiat versus Crypto)

In most cases, companies pay in fiat.

International-based companies lead the charge in paying in crypto (e.g., USDC), especially for internationally-based workers. US-based companies are more likely to use crypto to pay contractors than employees, regardless of location, and they’re also more likely to pay international workers in crypto, regardless of whether they’re employees or contractors.

Company Likelihood of Having a Token

Our portfolio strongly considers token adoption, with only 14% of companies definitively claiming they’ll never launch one.

International companies are more likely to adopt tokens, with a higher percentage that have one or plan to launch one.

Token/Equity Compensation Offerings

Companies generally offer salary plus equity, tokens, or some combination of the two. When planning compensation or evaluating offers, it’s crucial for both founders and candidates to think about how and where the company accrues value, whether to tokens or equity.

Nearly half of all companies are paying only equity. Note, though, that the majority of companies that indicate they may launch a token in the future (but don’t yet know) are offering only equity, and all projects that currently have a live token are offering tokens as part of compensation.

Relationship Between Tokens and Equity

The majority of companies offer tokens proportionally to equity. (This may indicate that they’re using the “percentage of tokens” calculation method.)

Token Calculation Methodologies

With that said, the most common, well-defined approaches that we see are:

Overall, most companies use the “percentage of tokens” approach.

Future Considerations

As a two-person team working on this report, we learned a lot. With future iterations, we’ll refine and expand our approach in several key areas:

Thanks to all the contributors for their thoughts and review.