Layoffs in Crypto Industry Drop in February, Messari and Elliptic Most Recent to Slash Staff

An estimated number of 570 professionals engaged with the digital assets sector lost their jobs in February.

Written by Radhika Parashar, Edited by Manas Mitul | Updated: 1 March 2023 14:13 IST

Layoffs in Crypto Industry Drop in February, Messari and Elliptic Most Recent to Slash Staff

Photo Credit: Pixabay

Around 2,850 people working in the crypto sector lost their jobs in January

Highlights

Genesis, Huobi laid off workers in January
Layoffs in crypto sector picked pace in the second half of 2022
Coinbase and Binance had also announced job cuts last year

The wave of layoffs that has severely impacted the tech industry in recent months, also hit the crypto sector around the beginning of this year. As the year progresses into its third month, the layoffs in the crypto sector have recorded a significant dip. While the layoffs saw a drop in February, at least twelve cryptocurrency companies announced staff cuts in recent weeks. Messari, the crypto market intelligence firm, and Elliptic, the crypto compliance firm, are the latest firms to lay off some of their staffers.

In January this year, the crypto industry witnessed a high rate of job cuts. Around 2,850 people working in the crypto sector lost their jobs in the month, figures compiled by CoinTelegraph reportedly showed.

On the other hand, an estimated number of 570 professionals engaged with the digital assets sector lost their jobs in February — marking a notable decline in job cuts.

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Most places, that did decide to trim their respective teams, did so in double digits throughout February's 28-day period.

Messari for instance, announced layoffs for 15 percent of its workforce. As per its founder Ryan Selkis, these job cuts were due to market turmoil which caused the firm to organise a restructuring of its internal teams.

2/ We still plan to hire for a number of open roles and will continue working to bring better transparency & data standards to crypto.

Market headwinds (in crypto / tech generally) led to a tough decision. But I'm confident this move will put us on stronger footing long term.
— Ryan Selkis :ninja: (@twobitidiot) February 23, 2023

Elliptic, which laid off 10 percent of its workforce comprising of ten people, cited cost-cutting requirements for the company as the reason behind its decision.

“The spike in layoffs is a macro event not just in Web3 but tech in general fuelled by fears of an extended recession,” CoinTelegraph quoted Neil Dundon, an Australia-based crypto recruiter as saying.

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As per Layoffs.fyi, a website tracking tech layoffs since COVID-19, the overall staff cuts across the IT sector impacted over 108,900 people from 129 companies including Google, Microsoft, and KPMG among others between January and February.

While over 82,400 people were laid off from the IT industry in January, over 24,500 people lost their IT jobs in February.

After facing headwinds in India last year, Xiaomi is all set to take on the competition in 2023. What are the company's plans for its wide product portfolio and its Make in India commitment in the country? We discuss this and more on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.

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Further reading: Cryptocurrency, Crypto Industry, Layoffs, Job Cuts, Messari, Elliptic

Radhika Parashar

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Radhika Parashar is a senior correspondent for Gadgets 360. She has been reporting on tech and telecom for the last three years now and will be focussing on writing about all things crypto. Besides this, she is a major sitcom nerd and often replies in Chandler Bing and Michael Scott references. For tips or queries you could reach out to her at RadhikaP@ndtv.com. More