According to a corporate blog post published on Wednesday, U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange Kraken will let go of 30% of its worldwide employees, or over 1,100 individuals, to "adjust to current market conditions."
The current market trend
Macroeconomic and geopolitical variables have affected financial markets since the beginning of this year. As a result, there were noticeably fewer client sign-ups and trading volumes, the business wrote in the statement. Unfortunately, the financial markets have remained negatively impacted, and no better choices are left to match prices to demand.
The layoffs
According to Kraken's statement (1), the reductions leave the company's overall employment at the same level as it was a year ago. Kraken's action comes after the failure of the Bahamas-based cryptocurrency exchange FTX.com earlier this month, which has caused crypto markets to decline and endangers businesses that have exposure to FTX; one such company, cryptocurrency lender BlockFi Inc., filed for bankruptcy this week.
Since FTX's demise, the market value of all cryptocurrencies has decreased by 16%, and the price of one bitcoin has decreased by 18% to US$17,128. The collapse of FTX only made the crypto market slump this year worse, with Bitcoin's price (2) falling 63% since the end of 2021. Coinbase Global Inc., a different American exchange (3), eliminated 60 jobs last month after losing 18% of its personnel in June.
