Crypto.com Slashes Workforce By 20 Percent, Cites Negative Economic Developments

Kris Marszalek, Co-Founder, and CEO of CRYPTO.com (formerly known as Monaco)

On Friday, crypto exchange Crypto.com announced that it is slashing its global workforce by 20 percent while citing the currency macroeconomic challenges and what it called “unforeseeable” events in the crypto space. 

Since the year began, a handful of crypto businesses have either slashed their workforce or announced plans to do so. Last week, crypto lending platform Genesis announced that it was reducing its workforce by 30 percent. Huobi, a crypto exchange based in Seychelles announced job cuts of 20 percent. This week, Coinbase announced that it was slashing its workforce by 20 percent. Amid all of these job cuts, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange Binance announced plans to increase its workforce by 15 percent to 30 percent this year.

Crypto.com’s latest decision follows the reduction in its workforce mid-last year which affected 250 positions. According to a handful of reports, the latest job cut involved at least 2,000 who were either let go or left by their own decision. The company, which also like a handful of other exchanges, blamed the collapse of FTX for its dilemma. Crypto.com noted that FTX’s collapse “significantly damaged trust in the industry.”

In a blog post, crypto.com’s co-founder and CEO Kris Marszalek said, “We grew ambitiously at the start of 2022, building on our incredible momentum and aligning with the trajectory of the broader industry. That trajectory changed rapidly with a confluence of negative economic developments.” 

Last year was particularly tough for Crypto.com, apart from the macroeconomic challenges that rocked the crypto space. The exchange faced massive criticism for its Matt Damon ad which was termed as creepy and overly enthusiastic. It also sent an Australian customer over $10 million and faced concerns concerning its financial performance.

Another source of worry arose after auditing firm Mazars announced that it had paused its work with crypto clients, days after giving Crypto.com a vote of confidence that users’ assets were fully backed. 

Speaking on the latest decision, Crypto.com’s CEO said that “The reductions we made last July positioned us to weather the macroeconomic downturn, but it did not account for the recent collapse of FTX, which significantly damaged trust in the industry. It’s for this reason, as we continue to focus on prudent financial management, we made the difficult but necessary decision to make additional reductions in order to position the company for long-term success.” 

Reductions in the workforce have become one of the significant strategies being applied by various crypto (and even NFT) firms looking to survive in the current macroeconomic realities.