Moonvember kicks off with sweeping staff layoffs across crypto
The crypto and tech industry has seen a slew of staff cuts this week against a backdrop of difficult market conditions, though on a positive note some are bucking the trend.
Crypto companies, including crypto exchanges, venture capital firms, and blockchain developers, have been forced to reduce headcount in order to stay nimble amid the down markets. Some, however, have done the opposite, opening up offices in new locations and markets.
It comes a few weeks after multiple high-level executives, such as OpenSea’s former CFO, Kraken's co-founder Jesse Powell, and Ripple Labs’ engineering director, have all made headlines for either exiting or stepping down from their roles in the space.
Patrick Collison, CEO of payments processor Stripe, in a Nov. 3 memo, said 14% of the firm's staff — around 1,000 employees — would be laid off, citing “inflation, energy costs, higher interest rates, reduced investment budgets, and sparser startup funding” as reasons for the cuts.
Collison added it “overhired for the world we’re in” saying Stripe was “too optimistic” about short-term e-commerce growth, underestimating the impact of a wider market downturn, and that its operating costs grew too quickly.
The memo says the headcount changes will be uneven across Stripe, and it’s unclear what departments will be affected or how it will affect the crypto side of its business. The payments startup released a crypto payouts product in April for Twitter creators.
Flow blockchain developer Dapper Labs made the decision on Nov. 2 to cut 22% of its headcount, impacting roughly 130 employees in a memo by founder and CEO Roham Gharegozlou.
Gharegozlou said the “macroeconomic environment” and the company’s growth from 100 to over 600 employees in less than
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