The latest addition to the already lengthy list of cryptocurrency businesses that have been laying off employees as a result of the ongoing crypto winter is Protocol Labs, the company that created the decentralized storage network Filecoin. The bankruptcy of FTX, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchange platforms, as well as other macroeconomic issues, further exacerbated the aforementioned market downturn.
Protocol Labs Suffers This Crypto Winter
Juan Benet, the chief executive officer of Protocol Lab, said in a blog post published last Friday that the company is purportedly letting go of 89 people, or around 21% of its workforce. Although the CEO did not say whether the Filecoin team will be impacted. Then he especially mentioned the so-called “very hard economic downturn” in the cryptocurrency sector.
The so-called “very challenging economic downturn” refers to the persistently high inflation that directly causes high lending rates, poor investment, and more competitive markets, which have actually put a strain on a number of businesses and important players in the sector.
Benet went on to say that the current macro winter was able to exacerbate the crypto winter from the previous year, making it more severe and possibly lasting longer than initially anticipated. Then he said that over the past few quarters, Protocol Labs had been able to “substantially slash costs” in order to “weather the macro and crypto winter.”
Layoff in The Crypto Industry
Nearly 3,000 layoffs in the cryptocurrency sector have been reported just in the first month of 2023. The cited figure supposedly corresponds to 41% of all job losses in the crypto industry in 2017. The information from CoinGecko, together with the report from Layoffs.fyi and public reports, further validated the aforementioned assertion. The number of industry layoffs is anticipated to surpass last year’s total, according to CoinGecko.
Crypto.com, a Singapore-based exchange for digital assets, has already begun its second wave of layoffs, which has already resulted in a 20% employment reduction. Their first layoff reportedly affected 260 employees of the organization and took place in the summer of 2022.
In addition to Crypto.com, the Ethereum software company that created the cryptocurrency wallet MetaMask, ConsenSys has also made hints about its intentions to fire around 100 of its staff. Despite being one of the biggest cryptocurrency exchanges in the country, Coinbase has already said farewell to about a thousand people, or around 20% of its whole staff. It was claimed that the action was a part of their “restructuring plan.”
