Crypto tax firm Koinly announced cuts of up to 14% to its global team in response to the “intensifying bear market,” but many employees have taken issue with this narrative.
In a December 6 announcement, Koinly founder and CEO Robin Singh said that the cryptocurrency market crash, coupled with fewer people reporting cryptocurrency on their tax returns, had contributed to the company’s decision to lay off 14% of its team.. However, several staff members who spoke to Cointelegraph on condition of anonymity said that the cuts had affected many more people on Koinly and had been unprofessionally executed.
According to a former Koinly employee, the company had laid off more than 100 regular employees and contractors in recent months, all of its London and Sydney teams, as well as many in Canada. Apparently, among these cuts were many within the management at the request of Singh, who decided to eliminate the posts.
Many of Koinly’s employees reported that there was a lack of communication between executives and staff about these layoff decisions, with people receiving little or no notice that they would be laid off. Some reportedly had access to their Slack accounts removed at the same time they were notified, leading to limited communication upon departure.
“Start-ups are by nature incredibly volatile,” an anonymous employee said in a Glassdoor review on Dec. 5. If someone has to be fired, everyone follows a common manual to avoid unnecessary suffering. “In Koinly, layoffs were handled fatally.”
They added:
“On Monday, November 28, the company received a post about ‘flattening the organization by 2023.’ What followed were daily layoffs for several days. People who survived the first day would have to return for days afterward feeling anxious and stressed, without knowing if that day would be the last”.
Some who had been at the company speculated that the decision to downsize was affected by ties to failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX. Several once-important cryptocurrency platforms have gone bankrupt in 2022, including BlockFi, Celsius Network, and FTX Group.
Koinly’s head of content, Michelle Legge, told Cointelegraph that most of the laid-off employees had joined the company in the last four months, saying that the “shock waves from the FTX collapse” had played a role in the layoffs. :
“We understand that some former employees are upset and we are sorry for them. […] We have noticed that some are sharing their views publicly and have empathy for their anguish at this time. Where we would like to take responsibility, however, is in how the restructuring communications and layoffs were handled. There is room for improvement in the way the changes were communicated to both previous staff and the rest of the team.”
Other exchanges and cryptocurrency companies have announced similar staff cuts in response to the bear market. Kraken said on Nov. 30 that it was cutting its staff by 30% in an effort to survive the crypto winter, while Australian cryptocurrency exchange Swyftx announced 35% staff cuts on Dec. 5 to prepare for the “worst case scenario.” cases.”
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