Global crypto exchange Coinbase has announced its intention to lay off 18 per cent of its global workforce, including 8 per cent of its staff strength in India, in another sign of a worsening crypto downturn that has shaved off trillions of dollars of the total cryptocurrency market value.
“Yesterday we made the difficult decision to reduce the size of our team which affected 18 per cent of Coinbase's global workforce. Although this did impact our India hub, the cuts were much lower than the global average. Approximately ~ 8% of our India team was affected,” Durgesh Kaushik, senior director, Coinbase, said in a Tweet.
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On June 14, 2022, Coinbase Global CEO Brian Armstrong Tweeted: “Today, I shared that I’ve made the difficult decision to reduce the size of our team at Coinbase by about 18 per cent. The broader market downturn means that we need to be more mindful of costs as we head into a potential recession.
“We also grew quite quickly over the past two years, and have begun to operate less efficiently at our new size. It will take us some time to adjust to this new scale before growing again,” Armstrong added.
About the retrenchment in India, about one in 12 of Coinbase employee has been laid off.
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Kaushik, however, added: “Despite these challenges, India remains a priority market for Coinbase, and a strategic long-term growth bet. We are excited to announce that Arnab Kumar just joined us as director of India market expansion to start building foundational partnerships and operations in the country.”
Incidentally, Coinbase is not the only exchange to have announced job cuts because of the downturn in the crypto market. Previously, BlockFi, a global crypto exchange has also announced that it would cut about 20 per cent of its staff strength — or about 170 people. The company blamed the “dramatic shift in macroeconomic conditions worldwide” as reason for the job cuts.
Elsewhere, crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek has also Tweeted that the company would reduce its workforce by about 5 per cent—260 people.
Also, at the beginning of June, Gemini fired 10 per cent of its workers, while Coinbase cancelled employment offers of about 300 potential hires.
The cryptocurrency market is slipping to a new low every day. Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency is at its 18-month low, tumbling to $20,407 on June 15. It is down by around 60 per cent so far this year. Meanwhile, the second-largest crypto Ethereum fell over 25 per cent to $1,040.
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