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Crypto exchange Binance said its “hardcore” work culture could explain some of the results, while recruiters warn the data should be taken with a grain of salt.

Crypto exchanges, including Gemini, Binance and Coinbase, are home to some of the least happy employees in the industry, according to data derived from Glassdoor — though some argue the results may be skewed.

A quadrant chart by tech recruitment firm TrueUp — understood to have collated data from job review platform Glassdoor — mapped out how crypto firms stack up regarding employee happiness vs. growth.

27 of the most valuable cryptocurrency firms were placed on TrueUp’s quadrant chart.

The chart shows defunct crypto lender Celsius, crypto exchange Gemini and crypto trading firm Amber Group, with the least happy employees, according to data gleaned from 80, 139 and 42 reviews, respectively.

Binance and Coinbase also appear on the left side of the chart, with the respective Glassdoor listings showing a total of 1,257 reviews.

Glassdoor doesn’t have a happiness metric, but it does gauge whether the reviewer would recommend the company to a friend, whether they approve of the CEO they worked under, and whether the reviewer had a positive outlook for the company.

Binance attributes score to ‘hardcore’ values

Speaking to Cointelegraph, a Binance spokesperson explained that the firm seeks to hire candidates “who can thrive in a truly high-performance environment” in addition to being “obsessively focused on delivering for our users.”

They explained that not every Binance employee is cut out to be “hardcore” — one of the firm’s core values:

“It also means that sometimes, we have some who are not able to thrive in this unique, brutally fast environment, and we have to accept some negative reviews as a result.”

“Negative feedback enables us to address problems, and we’re on a constant journey to improve our employee experience,” the Binance spokesperson added.

Cointelegraph also reached out to Coinbase, MoonPay, Bitpanda and 21Shares for comment but did not receive a response by publication. Gemini declined to comment.

Glassdoor concerns

Glassdoor reviews are user-submitted, self-reported information. In 2017, recruiters raised concerns over the legitimacy of Glassdoor data, suggesting that reviews can be easily faked or manipulated.

However, Glassdoor states that every review goes through a “moderation process” before it is approved for publication on its website.

Neil Dundon, the founder of Crypto Recruit, told Cointelegraph that while the Glassdoor data is “speculative,” it appears as though employees “building infrastructure” are more satisfied than those working at exchanges:

“The sadder employees may not be as fulfilled given they are working in a more speculative/exchange environment whereas the right side are actually building infrastructure for blockchain, so these employees may feel they have more purpose in their work.”

The large staff layoffs among top-tier firms have likely been factored into the figures, Dundon suggested.

“Across the industry in general, though, it’s hard to feel happy in your job when there is underlying insecurity among employees with all of the layoffs that have happened over the last year,” he said.

The silver lining, according to Dundon, is that “the worst” may be behind crypto employees now.

Related: Crypto recruitment execs reveal the safest jobs amid layoff season

Meanwhile, the TrueUp chart suggests the “happiest” workers in the industry came from Ava Labs, the team behind the Avalanche blockchain; cryptocurrency exchange and wallet provider Blockchain.com; and Fireblocks, an institutional digital asset custodian.

Glassdoor data also shows that Alex Mashinsky, the founder and former CEO of the now-bankrupt cryptocurrency lending platform Celsius, was one of the industry’s most disliked CEOs, 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 69% and 65% approval ratings — lower than average for technology-based CEOs.

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