Crypto Company Giants Lay Off Workers as the Market Collapses
Published: June 16, 2022
Amidst one of the largest turmoils on the cryptocurrency market in recent years, companies are forced to find ways to withstand the storm — even if it means making less than orthodox decisions.
The two giants in the cryptocurrency trading field, BlockFi and Crypto.com, are two of the prime examples of companies taking such measures.
BlockFi announced they would be laying off as many as 20% of their workforce via a blog post on Monday. Zac Prince, the company’s CEO, later cited in a thread on Twitter that the main reason is the “dramatic shift in macroeconomic conditions.”
Much like BlockFi, Crypto.com also parted ways with a significant number of employees — around 5% or 260 members of its workforce, according to a Twitter thread by Kris Marszalek, the CEO.
These layoffs come as a natural response to the struggles of the entire crypto market. As the values of two major coins, Bitcoin and Ethereum, continued to drop throughout Monday, other companies started implementing similar tactics.
Celsius, a lending platform, started freezing withdrawals, stating “extreme market conditions” as the main culprit. Other companies, such as Gemini, Bitso and Mercado Bitcoin, and more, also had significant layoffs within their workforce, measuring at least 10% of it.
The huge crypto exchange platform, Binance, has halted Bitcoin withdrawals for three hours, pointing to a technical issue, and some coins like Terra have dropped to zero over the past few months.
The cryptocurrency market has been on a trajectory of exponential growth in recent years. However, its nature is extremely volatile, and these sudden yet significant drops in coins’ value stand as proof of its ever-changing course.
