What we know about the ConsenSys layoffs, as told by a ‘fired’ employee

ConsenSys, the blockchain behemoth powering a swathe of Ethereum-related software, is letting 13 percent of its staff go in a bid to retain a sense of viability.

The company confirmed what many believed would be inevitable : the exponential growth enjoyed by Joseph Lubin’s decentralized business experiment can’t, and won’t, go on forever.

A press release optimistically dubbed the new, 13-percent-lighter company as “ConsenSys 2.0,” presumably an attempt to spin the situation positively.

“Excited as we are about ConsenSys 2.0, our first step in this direction has been a difficult one,” the press release read. “We are streamlining several parts of the business including ConsenSys Solutions, spokes, and hub services, leading to a [13-percent] reduction of mesh members.”

Well, one anonymous person claiming to be an ex-employee took to Reddit to field questions from a curious cryptocurrency community.

They say they were let go as they had not successfully turned potential growth into profits – or so they were told.

Anyhoo, here’s some of the key takeaways:

Life at ConsenSys was ‘confusing, sometimes toxic, and empowering’

A big chunk of responses were devoted to detailing life within the walls of one of blockchain’s most powerful companies.

The source claims the working culture was “confusing, sometimes toxic, empowering, and like no other professional setting” they had previously encountered.

Traditional leadership took a backseat to more democratic decision making, allowing employees to be more flexible and imaginative in their roles. This worked, as long as they had enough budget, consensus, and support from their colleagues.

“Our remote first culture and emphasis on electronic communication could sometimes lead to toxicity, as egos can be emphasized or challenged in strange ways through these tools versus face to face communication and work,” the former employee said.

Employees were allowed unlimited vacation (but apparently most workers in the US took less than two weeks). They could also work remotely from anywhere, even afforded the power to shape roles themselves.

Other comments explained a lot of ConsenSys’ employees are young. This allegedly led people into external-facing leadership roles that “perhaps were not mature enough to handle the responsibility.”

“It was at times debilitating when it came to accountability and internal processes (from expense reporting and onboarding to designing new initiatives),” they wrote. “How do you keep people accountable in a remote first leaderless (but leader-full) company? It seemed as if the emphasis was on discovering what could emerge from the bottom up and less on designing from the top down.”

But when asked about morale, considering how ugly this years’s bear market has been, they replied:

“I can only speak from what I could see at ConsenSys, which is myopic at best with regards to morale: currently pretty damn low, but still hopeful and eager to build,” they wrote. “Changes in price certainly impacted mood, but never development. It was surprising how many people I encountered at ConsenSys who had zero ETH or very little – including developers.”

Although pay for ConsenSys devs (and non-devs) was reportedly “generous,” this particular employee was not paid in cryptocurrency. Although, they claimed some employees had received remuneration in cryptocurrency in the past.

“Seemed like a lack of tax and regulatory clarity made it preferential to pay in cash,” they said.

The writing was already on the wall

The source was asked if there was any indication their jobs were in jeopardy. They replied a “town hall” meeting had taken place, where they were told in a straightforward, respectful manner that downsizing would occur, and to expect layoffs.

“Prior to that, the writing may have been on the wall following internal communications about spending pauses following the downturn in the price of ETH,” they said.

“Joe [Lubin] has repeated that the runway of the organization is long, regardless of the price of Ether, but that regardless of price the organization needed to change priorities.”

These were noted as the first instances of ETH’s price being factored into the work and roles set by the organization in a significant way.

“[…] Leadership sees a tremendous opportunity cost to spending now, at this price, vs [sic] in the future at a higher price,” they added.

In hindsight, the source realized they should have known trouble was coming. They recounted memories of “teams being downsized” in the months prior to this announcement, and a “somewhat strong-armed” restructuring of internal team leaders.

They still want to believe in decentralized tech, but…

It should be made clear this ex-employee isn’t exactly disgruntled. They actually make some rather hopeful statements related to what the future holds for ConsenSys.

“That the current batch of layoffs only impacts 13 [percent] of people is remarkable,” they noted. “That said, not all investments are good ones and some are better than others. Like the larger blockchain ecosystem, a little downsizing and pruning at ConsenSys from time to time is probably a good thing overall.”

But, it’s clear the time spent at ConsenSys left a certain ambiguous mark on this particular ex-employee, despite noting they felt useful and interesting during their employment.

“I want to believe in decentralized tech and crypto, [but] belief [plus] doubt [equals] sanity,” they confessed. “I question whether the current trend of incumbent players and the global elite looking [towards] crypto and Ethereum is a positive trend.”

“Think banks, hedge funds, insurance companies, and governments. Ultimately, tech is just a tool, like a hammer, and a hammer can build or it can smash,” one comment continued. “Will this tech be used responsibly by governments like the UAE? Is it wise to invite multinational corporations in to a future where value has been turned on its head?”

Hard Fork has reached out to ConsenSys for a statement, and will update this piece should we hear back.

Ultimately, the source hasn’t ruled out working with blockchain, or in any adjacent industry, again.

Much akin to ConsenSys (2.0), the source warned they would be treating this as a “moment to pause and consider” the next steps.

This news solidifies downsizing as a verifiable blockchain trend. Last week, Hard Fork reported at least three other cryptocurrency-related startups have let staff go as a result of this year’s cryptocurrency downturn.

Most notable (besides ConsenSys) is “decentralized” content-sharing platform Steemit, which recently fired 70 percent of its workforce in order to stay alive.

Coindar is the nifty cryptocurrency trading tool that every investor should use

Cryptocurrency trading can be a fickle mistress – and if you hang out in Telegram channels long enough you’ll see these questions asked incessantly:

When moon? Why dump? When new exchange?

Well, a new service has opened up that can help answer in real time. Coindar is primarily a web-based cryptocurrency calendar for your desktop – but one that has a direct line to the developers of blockchain projects. This creates a rather ingenious ecosystem that allows teams to add tech updates, meet-up information and other milestones, meaning that the information is primarily from official sources.

While a calendar is great – the site also offers some other dynamic ways to gauge the temperature of cryptocurrency sentiment in real time, perfect for those constantly trading.

Cryptocurrencies, in general, rely heavily on Twitter to spread information – but often the most critical updates come from key developers with low follower counts, meaning critical news can often be buried, only to be found when it’s too late to effectively make that trade.

Coindar’s social media analytics tool could prove critical in predicting price action. It follows over 1,600 blockchain developers‘ profiles to provide you with a complete map of crypto-Twitter.

It tracks tweets, identifies the related coin and gives statistical analysis of just how much buzz there is surrounding a particular project at any one time. The service also ranks cryptocurrencies on the size of their communities, so you know if your camp is growing – especially helpful to compare your favorite coin to it’s competitors – although some data, such as Telegram and Twitter user counts, can be easily skewed by the large number of bots that exist on such platforms.

Today, for example, I’ve learned that buzz is starting to grow around Vertcoin again – Twitter activity is up 14 percent on yesterday.

Some of the biggest players in the industry manage their cryptocurrency investments using these kinds of analytics. Back in April, Pantera Capital Management CEO Dan Morehead revealed that this is exactly the kind of information his firm uses – Twitter feeds and Github commits – to determine the best market plays to make.

After being armed with all this hot insider information, you can even head to the Forecasts section of the website and submit your calls. The system is automatically updated from market data to reflect how accurate they were.

If they come true, you’ll move up in the ranks, making it a useful platform to gauge just how intuitive your investing has become. It also doubles as a great resource with which to see how others might be considering trading.

If you think this might be a great addition to your cryptotrading utility belt, head on over to Coindar’s website to create an account and start exploring – you might find a new gem that’s just about ready to blow.

Bitcoin has seen 44 forks since Bitcoin Cash and they are all useless

It isn’t just the initial coin offerings (ICOs) that are running rampant, it seems cryptocurrency forks are in close competition.

Bitcoin alone has seen 44 forks of its blockchain since August last year, according to BitMEX Research.

Bitcoin Cash, or BCash — launched on August 1, 2017 — was Bitcoin’s first hard fork that resulted in a blockchain split. The hard fork happened following the controversy over the integration of SegWit feature with Bitcoin’s blockchain.

A host of forks have since followed — christened by adding any random word you can imagine next to Bitcoin: Candy , Pizza , God , Faith , Diamond , Gold , Atom , etc.

Most of the forked cryptocurrencies, however, don’t seem to have had any luck when it comes to adoption or trading volumes.

As per Coinmarketcap data, only four of the forks (Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Diamond, Bitcoin Gold, and Bitcoin Private) see trading volumes of more than $100,000 per 24 hours.

Bitcoin’s software is open-sourced, and a hard fork happens when a developer clones the Bitcoin’s blockchain to make a new blockchain and cryptocurrency by modifying the original code.

Ideally, the purpose of a hard fork is to make technical advancements in the existing blockchain, when some people still want to keep using the consensus protocol of the older blockchain.

But it seems that most of the hard forks are only aimed at minting quick money using Bitcoin’s name rather than bringing any significant advancements in blockchain technology.

“Unfortunately, most fork-based projects we see today are more of a sheer money grab,” George Kimionis, CEO of Coinomi told Bloomberg at the beginning of this year predicting that 2018 will see the launch of at least 50 Bitcoin hard forks. “Looking back a few years from now we might realize that they were just mutations fostered by investors blinded by numerical price increases — rather than honest attempts to contribute to the blockchain ecosystem.”

With services such as Forkgen , which allow even rookie programmers to create Bitcoin hard forks, it is likely that the number will end up being a lot higher.

Let’s see what names they’ll come up with — I am rooting for Bitcoin Butter Chicken Masala.