Amid recent cryptocurrency market volatility, which has affected investments and stock prices, many companies have made significant job cuts in the last month, while others have continued to hire.
In June, major cryptocurrency exchange Gemini was one of the first companies to cut 10% of its employees amid the bear market, saying conditions are “likely to persist for some time.” Coinbase and Crypto.com followed suit, announcing plans to cut staff by 18% and 5%, respectively. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong also cited the so-called crypto winter as part of the reason for the layoffs, but also stated that the firm had been growing “too fast.”
Market conditions have not changed much after many downsizing decisions, and other companies have been forced to cut back. Cryptocurrency lending firm BlockFi announced that it would reduce its staff by approximately 20% on June 13, and Cointelegraph reported on Thursday that FTX was in the process of finalizing a deal to purchase the platform’s remaining assets for $25 million. BlockFi CEO Zac Prince denied rumors about a possible sale.
Lots of market rumors out there – I can 100% confirm that we aren’t being sold for $25M.
I encourage everyone to trust only details that you hear directly from @BlockFi.
We will share more w you as soon as we can.
— Zac Prince (@BlockFiZac) June 30, 2022
The Austrian platform for trading cryptocurrencies and shares Bitpanda announced on June 24 a massive dismissal as it intends to “come out financially healthy” in the midst of the current bear market, with which the company becomes “a size of about 730 employees”. At press time, the cryptocurrency firm does not have any job openings available on its website.
However, many companies in the cryptocurrency space are still operating as normal, seemingly prepared to weather the storm; at least one of them is even picking up the baton. Cointelegraph reported that the United States Financial Industry Regulatory Authority was open to hiring laid-off employees of crypto firms in an effort to “grow” their capabilities.
Globally, Binance and Ripple offered thousands of jobs to replace those recently dissolved from major exchanges and cryptocurrency companies. Kraken also stood out as one of the exchanges that announced its plans to continue to hire more than 500 positions in various departments amid the market downturn. Sergey Vasylchuk, CEO of Ukrainian staking provider Everstake, announced on June 15 that the firm was “not laying off anyone.”
According to data compiled by blockchain jobs site “Crypto Jobs List,” companies have posted more than 3,000 jobs related to the cryptocurrency space in the United States in the last seven days, roughly 37% of all Opportunities posted in the last 30 days. The UK and India have also posted large numbers of crypto-related jobs in the last seven days (562 and 183, respectively), suggesting that the sector still has room for more staff.
“Kraken and Binance have shown that they plan to stick around for a long time looking to increase their headcount during a bear market,” a Crypto Jobs List spokesperson told Cointelegraph. “The market downturn has meant that individuals who don’t plan to stay for long are deterred, and only serious candidates who are interested in a long-term career are left to apply, and hiring managers recognize this.”
It was not easy saying no to Super bowl ads, stadium naming rights, large sponsor deals a few months ago, but we did.
Today, we are hiring for 2000 open positions for #Binance. pic.twitter.com/n24nrUik8O
— CZ Binance (@cz_binance) June 15, 2022
It wasn’t easy saying no to Super Bowl ads, stadium naming rights and big sponsorship deals a few months ago, but we did it.
As of today, we are hiring for 2,000 open positions at Binance.
At the time of writing, the price of Bitcoin (BTC) is below $20,000, having fallen more than 37% in the last 30 days according to data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro.
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