After the huge fall of value of cryptocurrencies in the last months, two of the crypto giants Bitmain and Huobi announced to cut jobs, following ConsenSys, which also made a similar announcement. It is not a surprise that the industry is scaling back operations and companies lay off staff.
Chinese cryptocurrency company Bitmain, which has been one of the top mining hardware manufacturers, said in a statement that they would be undergoing some adjustments to their staff the next year as it continues to build sustainable business.
A spokesman denied rumours that are going around on social media that the company will lay off more than half of its employees, but gave no specific information on exactly how many layoffs are planned.
Bitmain said in the statement:
“A part of that is having to really focus on things that are core to that mission and not things that are auxiliary. As we move into the new year we will continue to double down on hiring the best talent from a diverse range of backgrounds,”
Concurrently, a spokeswoman for Huobi, which is one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, said that they are optimising their staff, which means cutting off their worst performing employees. She also mentioned that this does not mean that they are not hiring anymore, but that they will continue to hire new staff for emerging markets and core teams.
Both companies declined to quantify the number of layoffs planned. Bitmain has a total of 2594 full-time employees and Huobi has more than 1000 employees.
According to some experts, downsizing is part of the cycle of many new, high-growth industries. The recent downsizing of cryptocurrency companies may instead give rise to sharper, more focused companies in the future.
