The sadness of cryptocurrencies continued on Tuesday with one of the largest trading platforms in the industry announcing that it will lay off 18 percent of its workforce.
Coinbase, which went public last year in a highly promoted IPO, announced plans to lay off a blog post written by company president Brian Armstrong, who said that after increasing its staff by more than 300 percent since early 2021, “. now I’m clear we hired in excess.”
“It looks like we’re going into a recession,” Armstrong said. “A recession could lead to another cryptocurrency winter and could last for a long time.”
Reducing Coinbase’s workforce by 18 percent causes some 1,100 people to lose their jobs.
The layoffs add to the 20 percent cuts announced by BlockFi and the five percent cuts in Crypto.com announced on Monday, when the prices of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin fell to their lowest level since 2020.
Cryptocurrency sales continued on Tuesday as the price of Bitcoin fell slightly below US $ 21,000. The value of the world’s largest cryptocurrency has fallen by 20 percent in the past three days and is down about two-thirds after hitting a record high of nearly $ 70,000 last November.
Armstrong said any staff who lost their jobs would be notified in their personal emails “because we made the decision to cut off access to Coinbase systems to affected employees.”
“Coinbase employees are among the most talented in the world, and I’m sure companies around the world will continue to look for the skills you all have,” said Armstrong, who has a $ 2.1 billion net worth in the United States. to a large extent. about their participation in society.
Coinbase says the compensation packages will cost the company about US $ 45 million.