Latest in Crypto Hiring: More Fall Victim to Persistent Layoffs

As the year marked by the demise of major industry players comes to a close, several more organizations have announced rounds of layoffs in the last week, preparing for crypto winter's low point.

Amber Group, according to Bloomberg, plans to reduce its employment from 700 to less than 400 people. The report comes after reporter Colin Wu tweeted on Monday that the company has started laying off hundreds of employees again this month.

The company claimed in a tweet on Tuesday that its operations and the WhaleFin app are “business as usual,” but that it is continually altering internal teams and functions.

A request for comment was not immediately returned by a representative.

Bybit CEO Ben Zhou stated in a series of tweets on December 3 that the company plans to shrink “across the board” in order to be more agile in navigating the market slump.

“Difficult decision taken today,” he said, “but harsh times demand tough decisions.” “I have just announced plans to downsize our employment as part of an ongoing corporate reorganization as we target our efforts for the deepening bear market.”

A request for comment was not returned by a spokesman.

Australian cryptocurrency exchange Swyftx also announced that it would be laying off some of its employees. In a memo to employees on Monday, CEO Alex Harper announced the layoff of 90 employees as the company prepares for potentially worsening crypto market conditions.

“While Swyftx has no direct exposure to FTX, we are not immune to the consequences in the crypto markets,” Harper explained. “As a result, we must plan for the worst-case scenario of further major declines in global trade volumes during [the first half of] next year, as well as the possibility of other black swan-type incidents.”

Swyftx, according to Harper, has up to five times the number of personnel as most of its key Australian competitors.

“The truth is that Swyftx grew too quickly,” the CEO continued. “At the start of the year, our environment was completely different, and we expected global trading volumes to rise for at least six months longer than they did.”

Koinly, a cryptocurrency tax business, recently laid off 16 full-time employees, accounting for 14% of the company, according to company reps on Tuesday.

CEO Robin Singh stated in a statement that crypto investors have a “lack of information” when it comes to “reporting their bitcoin losses.” According to Singh, the “real crypto decline” has harmed the company by a smaller margin.

According to Axios, GameStop also laid off other employees, including members of the team developing GameStop's blockchain wallet.

Because of the layoffs, an increased number of crypto-focused specialists are looking for work.

According to Julia Draheim, a recruiter at staffing business Proof of Talent, while not many crypto companies are currently growing, several smaller organizations that just received Series A funding rounds are looking to expand their teams with senior-level individuals.

Employees who have been impacted by bankruptcies and layoffs are seeking for something more “solid,” she continued, noting that the term meant various things to different people.

“People that are extremely passionate about the area in general and view it as something that will be crucial in the future are definitely not shying away [from crypto],” she explained. “Most individuals simply want to ensure that there is adequate money and product-market fit.”

New hires

While some former FTX employees were apprehensive about being affiliated with the defunct exchange, Draheim stated that firms have not held what happened to their previous employer against them.

Adam Jacobs, FTX's former global head of payments, has joined Nuvei, a Montreal-based payments technology company, as senior vice president of corporate development.

In June 2021, Jacobs began working at the cryptocurrency exchange FTX. Last month, the cryptocurrency exchange declared bankruptcy.

Cowen Digital hired Taylor Cable, a former chief operating officer at Blockchain.com Asset Management, to manage its European and Asian activities.

Cowen, a financial services corporation, launched its digital assets section in March. TD Bank said in August that it would buy Cowen for $1.3 billion, albeit it is unclear how it will use Cowen's digital assets arm.

Cable also served as Blockchain.com's head of institutional client trading. Prior to joining the crypto firm, he was COO at artificial intelligence trading broker AiX and worked for Moore Capital Management for almost a decade.

Immutable, a web3 game firm, has appointed David Shin as its head of business development for the Asia-Pacific region and temporary leader of Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

He comes to Immutable from Klaytn Global Group, where he managed the team responsible for the Klaytn blockchain's adoption.

Shin left the banking profession in 2019 after serving as TD Bank's head of global equities derivatives and repo sales. He later became the chief of exchange at Bitcoin.com and oversaw TZ APAC, a Singapore-based team focused on Tezos blockchain adoption.

Magic Eden has appointed Chris Akhavan as its first chief gaming officer.

Akhavan was previously the chief revenue officer at Glu Mobile, a mobile game developer bought by Electronic Arts (EA) last year.

In June, Magic Eden raised $130 million, boosting its valuation to $1.6 billion. The following month, the business formed a venture arm focused on investing in Web3 games.

Harumi Urata-Thompson has been named chief financial officer of Wave Financial.

She will assist the Los Angeles-based crypto investment advice firm in expanding its operations infrastructure and back office solutions in order to better serve the team's institutional and high-net-worth clients.

Urata-Thompson was most recently the CFO of Emrit, a blockchain services startup. She was previously the chief investment officer at cryptocurrency lender Celsius, which declared bankruptcy in July.

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