Bybit isn’t the only firm reducing its staff strength to cope with the current bearish market conditions.
Cryptocurrency exchange Bybit has announced the second round of employee layoffs, citing a deepening crypto bear market.
According to Bybit CEO Ben Zhou, there was a need for the company to re-organize its plan to suit the bearish market conditions. That would include downsizing its workforce further. Zhou believes the appropriate structure and resources will help the exchange take advantage of opportunities while the market downturn remains.
Earlier in June, the firm cut its workforce to build a “smaller and more agile team”. According to crypto journalist James Wu, the exchange cut off as much as 30% of its workforce which was an estimated 2000 at the time. The recent announcement indicates a further reduction in that number.
Zhou indicated that the employee layoff will cut across the board. He said, “For our impacted colleagues, we will try to make this process as smooth as possible and take care of each individual’s needs as much as we can.”
Is the Crypto Bear Market Deepening?
After the significant deleveraging of the crypto market in May and June following the Terra ecosystem collapse, the market began to pick up slowly. By October, there were suggestions the crypto winter was almost over. That was until the collapse of FTX.
According to a Coinbase Global report, the collapse of FTX and Alameda research has set back recovery by months and deepened the bear market. Coinbase cited the revelation of affected firms as why this would be so. Similarly, founder and CEO of ETC Group Bradley Duke noted that the collapse would affect investor confidence and starve the ecosystem of liquidity.
Following the FTX collapse, cryptocurrency prices nosedived, bringing down the market cap to less than $800 billion. However, the current global cryptocurrency market cap today is $895 Billion, indicating a slight rebound.
Widespread Layoffs in Crypto Companies
Meanwhile, Bybit isn’t the only firm reducing its staff strength to cope with the current bearish market conditions. Recently, Kraken also announced a 30% cut in its numbers, equivalent to about 1100 employees. Coinbase and Bitso also downsized recently. Should the crypto bear market continue for much longer, more companies will inevitably take a page from Bybit’s book and reduce their numbers again.
An experienced writer with practical experience in the fintech industry. When not writing, he spends his time reading, researching or teaching.
