The cryptocurrency exchange Kraken said it was getting rid of 1,100 jobs or 30% of its staff. Former CEO and co-founder Jesse Powell, who left his job in September, made the announcement. Kraken is the latest cryptocurrency company to lay off a lot of people.
In a blog post, co-founder and former CEO of Kraken, Jesse Powell said, “We’re cutting our global workforce by about 1,100 people, or 30%, to adapt to current market conditions.” Powell had said before that he would leave his job in September.
Kraken said in June that they had no plans to change their hiring goals. In a blog post at the time, the company said, “We do not plan to lay off anyone. We have more than 500 jobs to fill by the end of the year, and bear markets are a great way to weed out the applicants who are only interested in the hype and find the people who really believe in our mission.
In his post from earlier today, Powell says that macroeconomic and geopolitical factors have been putting pressure on the financial markets since the start of the year.
“This led to a big drop in trading volumes and fewer people signing up as clients,” he said.
The post goes on to say that Kraken’s response was to hire fewer people and avoid making big marketing promises.
“Unfortunately, bad things have kept happening on the financial markets, and we’ve run out of better ways to bring prices in line with demand,” he said.
Even though today’s news goes against what the company said before, a lot has changed since June. As the crypto credit crisis goes on, bankruptcies have made the downturn worse. There have been more layoffs at crypto companies like Dapper Labs and BitMex.
Coinbase started letting people go in June when the cryptocurrency market started to go down. At the same time, it cut about 1,100 jobs or 18% of its workforce at the time.
CEO Brain Armstrong said the decision was made to make sure the company stays healthy during the economic downturn. The company grew too fast and hired too many people. Coinbase continues to let people go when it’s necessary. In November, 60 people lost their jobs.
