Amid the ongoing crypto crash, businesses are actively laying off employees to cut costs. Crypto exchange platform, blockchain.com became the latest addition to the long list of crypto companies that laid off employees.
According to Coindesk, the company dissolved 25% of its total workforce, amounting to approximately 150 employees, along with shutting down its Argentina offices. Furthermore, Blockchain.com also suspended its team expansion plans in several countries for foreseeable future. While about 44% of layoffs were based in Argentina, nearly 26% were from the U.S. and 16% were in the U.K., with the remaining located across the globe.
In the past few months, soon after the Terra-Luna, 3AC, and Celsius tragedies, the crypto industry saw a drastic drop in volume, followed by a panic sell-off. This further led to domino effect-like liquidation problems across crypto exchanges. In light of liquidation issues, the first step was laying off the workforce across departments.
Series of Layoffs Across Crypto Exchanges
A series of layoffs that began with Crypto.com’s 5% cut, was followed by other companies including:
- BitOasis: 5%
- Robinhood: 9%
- Bitso: 10%
- Gemini: 10%
- Coinbase: 18%
- BlockFi: 20%
- BitMex: 25%
- BitPanda: 27%
- Bybit: 30%
- Vauld: 30%
- Banxa: 30%
Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek tweeted about the company’s decision to lay off 5% of its workforce, i.e., approximately 260 employees.
On one hand, Marszalek noted that in order to,
“Stay focused on executing against our roadmap and optimizing for profitability as we do so”, the company made the “difficult and necessary decisions to ensure continued and sustainable growth for the long term by making targeted reductions of approximately 260, or 5% of our corporate workforce”.
On the other hand, industry giant, Coinbase CEO, Brian Armstrong lashed out at its own employees on Twitter in wake of a petition that was internally circulating within the company.
Soon after calling the petition “dumb” while instigating employees who had circulated it, to quit, Armstrong’s company laid off 18% of the workforce, claiming it was due to extreme market conditions. He tweeted, “if you have no confidence in the execs or CEO of a company, then why are you working at that company? Quit and find a company to work at that you believe in!”