The wave of layoffs that has severely impacted the tech industry in recent months, also hit the crypto sector around the beginning of this year. As the year progresses into its third month, the layoffs in the crypto sector have recorded a significant dip. While the layoffs saw a drop in February, at least twelve cryptocurrency companies announced staff cuts in recent weeks. Messari, the crypto market intelligence firm, and Elliptic, the crypto compliance firm, are the latest firms to lay off some of their staffers.
In January this year, the crypto industry witnessed a high rate of job cuts. Around 2,850 people working in the crypto sector lost their jobs in the month, figures compiled by CoinTelegraph reportedly showed.
On the other hand, an estimated number of 570 professionals engaged with the digital assets sector lost their jobs in February — marking a notable decline in job cuts.
Most places, that did decide to trim their respective teams, did so in double digits throughout February’s 28-day period.
Messari for instance, announced layoffs for 15 percent of its workforce. As per its founder Ryan Selkis, these job cuts were due to market turmoil which caused the firm to organise a restructuring of its internal teams.
2/ We still plan to hire for a number of open roles and will continue working to bring better transparency & data standards to crypto.
Market headwinds (in crypto / tech generally) led to a tough decision. But I’m confident this move will put us on stronger footing long term.
— Ryan Selkis :ninja: (@twobitidiot) February 23, 2023
Elliptic, which laid off 10 percent of its workforce comprising of ten people, cited cost-cutting requirements for the company as the reason behind its decision.
“The spike in layoffs is a macro event not just in Web3 but tech in general fuelled by fears of an extended recession,” CoinTelegraph quoted Neil Dundon, an Australia-based crypto recruiter as saying.
As per Layoffs.fyi, a website tracking tech layoffs since COVID-19, the overall staff cuts across the IT sector impacted over 108,900 people from 129 companies including Google, Microsoft, and KPMG among others between January and February.
While over 82,400 people were laid off from the IT industry in January, over 24,500 people lost their IT jobs in February.
