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 [email protected] if there’s something specific you’re curious about.

<aside> 📖 TABLE OF CONTENTS

</aside>

Notes and Demographics

https://slides.com/dragonflycapital/dccs23demographics

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:

• **Roles: “**Crypto engineering” refers to engineers specializing in protocol or blockchain development. “Go-to-market” encompasses sales, marketing, and business development; and salaries reflect total on-target earnings, including commissions.
• Reporting Methodology: We asked companies to choose from preset salary ranges for employees at various seniority levels, allowing us to report average lower and upper salary bounds. However, for founder compensation, we’re using median values based on freeform responses from the survey.
• Founder Ownership: Founders were asked what percentage of equity / the token pool they own, and the Founder Compensation section of this report does not delineate between the two.
• “International” Definition: “International” refers to companies not based in the US.
• “Non-traditional” Definition: Companies with “non-traditional” funding either had a public token sale or are DAOs.
• Rounding: Due to rounding, certain figures (e.g., demographic information) may have a very small margin of error.

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.