Crypto Exchange Bybit To Cut Off 30% Workforce
- Third biggest crypto derivatives exchange Bybit will lay off employees, confirms CEO and co-founder Ben Zhou.
- The firm will be cutting down its workforce by over 30% due to decline in price of cryptocurrencies and collapse of crypto firms.
- Bybit also silently release employees in June this year, as per a Twitter post from independent journalist Colin Wu.
The crypto space has become increasingly bearish in the past few weeks, and this has resulted in many crypto firms decreasing their workforce. The newest addition to the layoff team is Bybit, a cryptocurrency exchange established in March 2018 that has since made it one of the most-used derivatives exchanges, as per rankings.
Bybit, the third biggest exchange in terms of crypto derivatives volume, has announced that it will be cutting down its workforce by over 30% as the crypto winter seems to have harmed the exchange financially. Interestingly, the exchange’s employee count grew from a few hundred to 2,000 in a very short period of time due to the 2021 crypto market boom and bull run.
There was a significant increase in the demand of crypto derivatives and crypto trading activities rose as well. As a result, Bybit grew rapidly but recently, the trading volumes have taken a dip and the prices of cryptocurrencies have declined by huge numbers. Many bulls are taking their tokens off exchanges which has led to a decline in demand of crypto brokerage services.
According to a report from Bloomberg, Bybit will let go of 30% of its workforce. The exchange’s co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Ben Zhou said that this move is the “part of an ongoing reorganization aimed at refocusing efforts, and reductions will be across the board” and also confirmed that that the priority is to “ensure business operations are unaffected and client assets remain safe.”
As per the executive’s statement, the reason for the decision is the huge decline in the price of cryptocurrencies followed by a worsening of the macroeconomic environment. Furthermore, the collapse of major crypto firms like BlockFi and Genesis has also affected Bybit in some capacity which is the reason why the exchange has been forced to take strict actions.
Zhou stated that the collapse of the firms “tell us that we are entering into an even colder winter than we had anticipated from both industry and market perspectives.”
“It’s important to ensure Bybit has the right structure and resources in place to navigate the market slowdown and is nimble enough to seize the many opportunities ahead,” Zhou said. “Tough times demand tough decisions.”
Interestingly, independent journalist Colin Wu was the first to report that over 30% of the staff will be laid off. He was also the first to cover the fact that Bybit silently released employees in June as well due to the exchange’s unstable growth.
However, Bybit is still making attempts to increase presence in the crypto space as recently, it launched a new Web3 custody wallet and multiple features like Swap and airdrop and IDO management are yet to be debuted.
A crypto journalist with over 3 years of experience in DeFi, NFT, metaverse, etc. Parth has worked with major media outlets in the crypto and finance world and has gained experience and expertise in crypto culture after surviving bear and bull markets over the years.
