ConsenSys 'Town Hall' Shows Staff Shaken at Ethereum's Largest Startup

Internal chat logs from a town hall held Friday by ethereum production studio ConsenSys show that employees are grappling with uncertainty in the face of recently announced layoffs.

While CoinDesk was able to observe the company-wide chat in real time, the corresponding, video-streamed answers from ConsenSys leadership were not viewable.

Because of what appears to be a reticence on the part of ConsenSys staff members to discuss the ongoing situation within the company, the chat logs present the most comprehensive snapshot to date of the major questions still roiling within one of the blockchain industry's most notable companies.

"We are not commenting on internal conversations," a ConsenSys spokesman told CoinDesk on Tuesday.

Still, the ConsenSys staff cuts could be a sign of a larger change at the startup, itself comprised of a network of projects and startups all dedicated to building out use cases on the ethereum blockchain.

Though some chat participants used names that correspond with those of current ConsenSys employees, it's impossible to verify if other outsiders also participated.

Even without corresponding answers, the questions themselves reflect internal sentiment as ConsenSys embarks on a course of belt-tightening and business-minded accountability.

"I'm glad ConsenSys went through with this and believe it should have happened much sooner," wrote an anonymous user.

"At some point this needed to happen, but we didn't expect the change [to come] so fast," said one recently laid-off ConsenSys employee, who CoinDesk is granting anonymity.

Yet while payrolls have skyrocketed as ConsenSys grew, revenues have not kept pace.